Iranian Actress Shohreh Aghdashloo Speaks Out Loudly About The Stoning of Soraya M.
Rarely has a film's release dovetailed with an earth-shattering event so that, by its very existence, it can contribute to radically altering world affairs. The Stoning of Soraya M. is such a film--especially since it highlights the plight of the women of Iran. It tells the tale of Soraya Marnò, who refuses to divorce her abusive husband, a former criminal, so he falsely accuses of her of adultery which leads to her execution by stoning. In revolutionary Iran, women have few rights and the religion is manipulated by those claiming correct religious practice.
Though set in 1986 Iran, Soraya's plight and that of her one defender, her aunt, Zahra--played by Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo--is similar to that of the formerly liberated Iranian women, who, chafing under the current regime's oppression, have been at the forefront of the protests happening now since the Presidential election was stolen by conservative incumbent MaMoud Amadinajad.
Jackbooted by the Islamic laws put into place after the Ayatollah Khomeini's "revolution" deposed one dictatorship and imposed another in 1979, women lost many of their their rights, and abuses--including the stoning depicted here in great detail--began.
Based on Freidoune Sahebjam's 1994 novel of the same name, Soraya's death was documented by a journalist (played by Jim Caviezel in the film) whose car breaks down in a remote village. He hears the story through Zahra, who desperately relays it to him in the hope that he'll get the word out about what happened in her town.
That he did. The book was a big success when published, and now it's a film. Director Cyrus Nowrasteh struggled for years to get it made, so he hopes it will stir a groundswell of reaction for the women struggling in Iran. Of course, securing Aghdashloo as its star, an Iranian actress of such reknown--she went from starring in acclaimed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's early features to a supporting actress Oscar nom for House of Sand and Fog (with turns in such films as The Nativity Story or X-Men: The Last Stand and TV series as 24 or Grey's Anatomy)--was crucial to making it as powerful as it is. And in her husky, accent-inflected voice, the 50-something Aghdashloo shared similar feelings as well in this exclusive interview.
Q: Did you read the book the film is based on?
SA: No, I had no idea about the book. But I had seen a real [stoning] on tape.
Q: You saw a real stoning [gasps]?
SA: It was horrible! Those who say that the stoning in this film is graphic should see the real one. This is a mild watery version of the stoning.
Q: Where did this happen?
SA: It was smuggled out of Iran during the mid-'80s by some opposition. [It] was copied a thousand times and spread amongst the people who were involved with the Iranian film and show business industry in US.
Thank God he told me not watch it during the evening. I took my daughter to school, put my husband to work, and at 11 am I put it on. It took an hour and a half for them to die [gasps]...
Q: An hour and a half?
SA: An hour and a half! I was sitting at the edge of my chair. Now my audience is telling me they sit at the edge of their chair--they never get to relax. I tell them, "Believe me, I sat like that for an hour and a half" and when it was finished I was almost paralyzed. I could not believe my eyes.
There was no way this was [fabricated]. It was a real one. The one I saw involved two young men who were being stoned for being homosexuals, one was 18, the other 19. This is like 20 years ago.
Q: After watching that actual footage, did it influence you as being the storyteller of this film? How did that affect you in regards to how you portrayed your character?
SA: Basically, Cyrus trusted me, because he was born here in the U.S. and got to Iran only for a few years when he was a child. So he did not really have any recollection--none whatsoever. He also told me to come up with ideas and then we'll discuss them together. I just kept playing for him and maybe we talked a few times over the character. But basically he trusted me all the way through.
As an actor, especially a method actor, I needed to imagine her physicality, how she looked. So I started with my nanny, Maryam, and the green scarf she wore. She used to put one of her ears out like it was a hairstyle, wearing it with those coin earrings which has a picture on them.
So I thought, "Okay, okay, okay, I'm going to dedicate this to Maryam. I'm going to think about her, the way she walks and talks. She was a villager and took really good care of me." She was a kind yet strong woman. She came all the way from the village, and started working in Tehran and had six kids.
Then, while doing research on the physicality, I saw this brilliant picture on the first page of New York Times--we're subscribers though we live on the West Coast. I saw this Iraqi woman standing with her hands clutched into each other, like this, and she was looking far into the distance.
There was a younger girl, seven or eight years, next to her with a fire going on behind her back. Her face is bruised, and she is, of course, dirty with the mud and everything on her face and clothes. But still, you could see the strength in her eyes. The way she was looking far in the distance was like, "I am determined to win this war." I thought, "This is it." So I tore it out, took it with me to Jordan, and put it on the mirror until the film was finished.
Then I had to think about different ways that woman wear the chador [full veil], and I had no idea because my family didn't wear a chador in Iran. I only got to wear it twice with my grandmother, going to the mosque.
So I was renting Iranian films that were made in post-revolutionary Iran, and started going through them and seeing, "Ooh! That's great!" It all came to me, how they act with the chador.
Honestly, I discovered the chador in United States. There's thousands of ways of working with this--how to open it to a person you have an intimate relationship with, and how to close it to strangers.
Q:Did you stay on top of the struggles in Iran when you went into exile?
SA: I did all the time, yes.
Q:So you stay in touch with your fellow exiles or filmmakers because you're so involved aesthetically? How do they survive in Iran?
SA: Well, people do find their own ways of living--either behind closed doors, or in the dungeons, or try to keep a low-key position in society. Some came out and worked, such as Kiarostami, I guess.
I once asked an Iranian poet living in Colorado, "How are you doing? Are you still writing that beautiful poetry?" And he goes, "No, I'm afraid not, I haven't worked for a year now." I said "Why not?" And he said, "Because I am a poet when I'm in my own country. When I see Damavand mountain in front of me, when I see all those hot springs in Iran. I guess I get my sources from what's in Iran."
I asked a painter, "How come you lived in Iran and never left?--because he speaks English and French fluently. And he said, "Shohreh, I'm a painter. I get my sources from rich colors, and the carpets, and the rich foods in our nature. I can't do the same thing in Switzerland."
Q:Are you a Muslim?
SA: I was born into a Muslim family, but never practiced.
Q:We Americans have a very limited, if not distorted and superficial, view of what the Muslim world is like. If I asked someone on the street what is a Shiite and Sunni, few would know. The Shiite tradition is vastly different from the Sunni tradition.
SA: It goes beyond that. For rural societies in the Muslim world, it's more details, of course, not just what's on the surface of it. [Stonings like this] do not happen in the big cities. It happens in the rural societies, where people who've hi-jacked Islam are manipulating people through Islamic law, claims that stoning is Islamic law--which is not, really.
Stoning [for adultery] is not in the Qur'an, it's not even in the Hadith [stories that were told in the time of Muhammad or after him that can carry the weight of law]. It's categorized under superstitions and traditions. But there are a few, especially in the rural areas, that don't know this.
Q:The same thing is happening in Pakistan and other Muslim countries--of stonings not really sanctioned by law.
SA: Exactly.
Q:When you were in Jordan shooting, did you talk to the villagers that were there?
SA: Oh. I was all the time with the villagers.
Q:What did they think about this story?
SA: First of all, when I'm working on a natural scene, I try to mingle and get involved with the scene. So when I got in, I started talking to a man and a woman. She was wearing a chador, but her face was out, and she was this close to hitting the man. I told my friends, "This is my character in this village."
So I went to her and I said "Madame, what is your name?" She said, "Jamila." And I said, "Jamila, my name is Shohreh and I want to be your friend." So every day she used to do my braid. I would literally sit on her lap and she would do it.
Our hair person, said, "Why don't you let me do it?" I said, "You don't understand. This way I am making this bond with this woman. It's necessary for me to feel like being one of them when portraying my character, and plus from that, I'm learning so much from them." I learned how to smoke from Jamila. Believe it or not, I smoked.
Q:You've never smoked [laughs]?
SA: Oh yes, I did, but not a chain smoker. Still, I had no idea how a village woman would smoke, because I smoke like a European. That's totally different, how they put their cigarettes between their fingers--that's how they smoke.
I learned a lot from them, and they were so gracious and kind. They kept asking me, "What's the story? What's the story?" I couldn't tell them, of course, but they were putting bits and pieces together.
Q:Even though there are people wearing chadors there, Jordan is still a fairly modern Muslim state without this repression. What did they say or think? Did they get an idea of what the movie was about? And did you get their reaction to the idea of stoning people?
SA: First of all, they were very cooperative. They were extras in the film. They loved doing it. They kept asking about the story, and I kept telling them different things. I didn't want to tell them what the core of the ideas was, not until the stoning scene started. And when it started--Jamila kept asking me, "Is she innocent?"
I kept telling her, "Jamila, it is irrelevant whether she's innocent or not, this thing shouldn't happen. Her husband shouldn't hit her." Because I go and get into the middle of the fight and save [Soraya] when Ali is beating her up in the street, Jamila and all the woman friends were around acting like the people of the village. They couldn't help themselves, they applauded, "Bauurra! Baurra!" The director goes, "God no! You're not supposed to show any kind of reaction. Don't applaud--this is not theater. It's for real."
So they were really cooperative, very nice people. But the moment we started digging the hole, they all gathered together, looked at the hole and Jamila came to me and said, "Are you Shiite?" I said yes. She said "Oh. Alas."
They were crying. And the scene of stoning, Jamila and her friends--I was crying because I was supposed to, and I couldn't help myself because I was thinking of the real thing. But they were crying. Never did they ever witness anything like this before.
Q:Not in Jordan?
SA: Not in Jordan. Never. I was so afraid that we might [ruin] their kids by doing this, in that village--you know, teaching them how to throw the stones. I was really afraid about that, really afraid. But then they're such civilized people, and they were all very, very, very upset and devastated about the film.
Q:What are your expectations with this film coming out?
SA: The film speaks brilliantly for itself. What I'm desperately looking forward to is that people who watch it, who would see it, will do something about it.
They won't just have to cry in their privacy. They can go to the site, stoning.com, and leave remarks there. When millions of people have read the site, then together we might be able to do something.
For a more complete version of this interview got to: filmfanwriter.blogspot.com.
Mahnaz Afkhami: Iranian Women's Voices
In the flood of news and information that surrounds us every day, we may take for granted the constant ripple of voices around the globe whose struggle to be heard often ends in violence, imprisonment or death.
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I am a 53 years old Iranian woman. I grew up in a middle class family in Tehran and graduated also in Tehran. I know my country before and after the revolution and I am also a person who does not follow any religion. I have never experienced any discrimination or abuse from my countrymen and if I say otherwise I would be a lier. I have no doubt that the story told in this film may have happened some place after the revolution in Iran but I hate to think that this film is going to confirm the totally wrong negative image of Iranian men as violent and abusers in the world and even worse will give the image of me as an abused woman when this is not true at all. I have the right to be seen as how I have been all my life as an Iranian woman. I repeat I do not subscribe to Islam or any other religion at all but Iran is not a country of violence and abuse and I am very very sorry that this film, although shall make a lot of money for the producers of it, is going to damage our nation and myself as a woman. I am a computer science graduate in 1978 in Tehran and you can view myself and even contact me through my work website www.flametreewebsoftware.com if you would like to discuss this matter with me. Best Regards, Susan P.
Thank you so much for being in the film and providing insight here. It is sickening that religious extremists in Iran, other nations, and here, are such a threat to women and gay people. Hopefully, this film will cause many more people to wake up. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta
The unfortunate result of this film is that it will stereotype all Iranians as evil and hateful against women when in fact most Iranian marriages are happy, deeply spiritual, and loving.
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Nice piece. Enjoyed the interview. If you get a chance, check out my blogs on Iran. I have three up on Huff Post, all personal essays told from a multicultural POV. Love to know what you think. The most recent one is It's Not Easy Being Green.
I just hope this actress is not paraded around and manipulated by the Christian right here in the US, because if they were in charge the US would not be much different than Iran.
The fact that according to Hillary Clinton women and girls are the majority of the world's "unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid" points to gender inequality as the moral scourge of the age. When women are denied their full human rights, societies suffer. When the world takes care of women, women take care of the world. Please look at www.34millionfriends.org You can actually take a stand.
Cheers, Jane Roberts
"It tells the tale of Soraya Marnò, who refuses to divorce her abusive husband, a former criminal, so he falsely accuses of her of adultery which leads to her execution by stoning"
I am so confused
She refused to divorce him? I don't understand what that means? I suppose in Islam that means something, I'm afraid I don't know the ins and outs of the marriage laws of the Shiite religion, but that sounds odd .
Not sure I agree with the author that they are distorting Islam in any way though. Islam as well as Judaism (and by extension Christianity) seem to clearly support death by stoning for the "crime" of adultery.
People need to move past religion not reclaim it from people who supposedly distorted it
Anyway, I'm sure its a sad and touching story
If she would have agreed to divorce, her life would have been, in her mind, worse than staying married with an abusive husband. When she is married, she at least will have food and shelter guaranteed. Divorced women in Muslim society have very few prospects. No one wants to marry them and they are denied much work.
These are the types of films that need to be made. I like a good thriller or sci-fi film as much as anyone, but if an actor wants to "do something important", this is what they need to do. Kudos to Aghdashloo.
P.S. - She's really beautiful!
This woman is so phenomenally talented, as anyone who say The House of Sand and Fog can tell you. I certainly can't say I look forward to "The Stoning of Soraya M." but it's a must-see.
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