SALT OF THE EARTH Virtue and Vengeance in Mohammad Rasoulof’s A Man of Integrity
On 15 September 2017, director Mohammad Rasoulof was returning to Tehran from the Telluride Film Festival, where his film A Man of Integrity (2017) – which premiered at Cannes that May – had screened. At the airport, his passport was confiscated, meaning he was effectively unable to leave the country. On 3 October, he was then ‘interviewed extensively’ by Iranian intelligence, with charges looming for crimes against the state.
Rasoulof is no stranger to run-ins with Iranian authorities. In 2010, in an event that drew international attention and screen-industry condemnation, he and fellow filmmaker Jafar Panahi were arrested and charged with ‘assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic’, for having dared to make a film in support of the opposition Green Movement. Rasoulof was sentenced to six years imprisonment and a twenty-year ban from leaving Iran, before the ruling on the former was appealed and reduced to a year. The director was also officially forbidden from making films – but, defiantly (‘When the judge in charge of my case sentenced me […] I laughed at him and said, “You are jeopardising national security by condemning artists,”’ recounts Rasoulof ), he kept working.
With due symbolism, is a drama about a man persecuted by authorities, battling against an unjust society. His refusal to play the same games as others – corruption, collusion, cronyism – is self-defeating, his virtue not rewarded but punished.
