Sheytan vojud nadarad

The winner of this year’s Golden Bear at the Berlinale, THERE IS NO EVIL is yet another example of Mohammad Rasoulof’s cinema of humanistic defiance. A collection of four stories all related by a single theme – the place of capital punishment within Iran’s Islamic Republic – the film examines how this problem cuts across various strata of society. The first vignette finds Rasoulof adopting a style somewhat reminiscent of Asghar Farhadi, as he ofers a portrait of the hangman as a middle-class family man, beset by perfectly ordinary problems. From there, we are asked to consider the very particular problem of compulsory military service which, in Iran, can sometimes mean serving as a state executioner. THERE IS NO EVIL is a stark, agenda-driven film, but no less stirring for its blunt polemics. If Iranian cinema has traditionally conveyed its messages through symbolism and allegory, Rasoulof opts for the simplicity of the fable here instead. As the title suggests, THERE IS NO EVIL demands a reconsideration of the moral certainties that undergird a theocratic state. (Michael Sicinski)

Mohammad Rasoulof: GAGOOMAN (2002), IRON ISLAND (2005), HEAD WIND (2008), THE WHITE MEADOWS (2009), GOODBYE (2011), MANUSCRIPTS DON’T BURN (2013), A MAN OF INTEGRITY (2017)