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
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In his novel
If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, Italian writer Italo Calvino observed, “The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death.” That statement is insightful enough and broad enough to apply figuratively to any form of art. But Mohammad Rasoulof’s
There Is No Evil, which won the Golden Bear (or top prize) at Berlin last year, puts a literal spin on it. A collection of four thematically connected stories about Iran’s death penalty and the demoralizing impact of state-sanctioned killing, this elegantly written and humanely acted movie extends empathy in multiple directions, including towards those struggling with the burden of “just following orders.” The film’s as compassionate as it is unsettling, and as provocative as it is poignant.