A well-oiled repressive state makes its citizens complicit in the crushing of dissent, a moral weight explored with exquisite, patient mastery in Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s anthology film “There Is No Evil.” Four whirlpool-like stories of emotional dread surrounding the death penalty, they also reinforce the pulsing humanism in this autocratic country’s most fiercely committed storytellers.
Of course, you have to be fiercely committed to the power of film if to make one might put you behind bars. First detained in 2010 (along with celebrated director and occasional collaborator Jafar Panahi), Rasolouf has yet to serve his one-year prison sentence for the charge of making anti-government propaganda. But he’s also been under a 20-year filmmaking ban since 2017 — when his Cannes-feted clerical critique “A Man of Integrity” angered the regime — and is forbidden from leaving the country. To make “There Is No Evil,” therefore, Rasolouf used a strategic mix of production subterfuge and canny location choices.