The 2010 Oscar ceremonies have come and gone without a word spoken about “The Stoning of Soraya M.” The searing drama, based on true events, follows the torture of an innocent Iranian woman charged with adultery. It’s the kind of message movie Hollywood doesn’t much care for, stories showcasing horrors that can’t be directly blamed on western culture.

But the drama, released today on DVD and Blu-ray, deserved a smattering of Oscar buzz all the same. What other movies bring the issue of Sharia law to light in such fashion? More importantly, why didn‘t Shohreh Aghdashloo’s blistering performance earn her a place in the Best Actress category?

“Stoning,” directed and co-written by “The Path to 9/11” screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh, takes us to a remote Iranian village under the thumb of Sharia law. Young, attractive Soraya (Mozhan Marno) is raising four children with little help from her husband, Ali (Navid Negahban). When Ali decides he’d rather be married to a 14-year-old Iranian girl, he tries to pressure Soraya into granting him a divorce. (more…)

As the world watches and waits for the political uprising in Iran to either succeed in toppling the brutal Khomeinist regime or be crushed by it, a movie by the name of The Stoning of Soraya M.  opens in limited release today. Far from being your typical summer fun film fare, Soraya depicts the ugliest, most brutal side of human nature and one woman’s crusade to keep it from being swept under the rug.

Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (The Path to 9/11) and written by Nowrasteh and his wife Besy Giffen-Nowrasteh, Soraya is based on the 1995 non-fiction book of the same name by Freidoune Sahebjam. Soraya takes place after the Islamic revolution in Iran and centers around Soraya (played by Mozhan Marnò), a woman whose husband, Ali (played by Navid Negahban), has tired of her after 20 years of marriage and wishes to discard her for a younger woman. Actually, “younger” is an understatement, as Ali lusts after a 14-year-old girl. Soraya knows about Ali’s plans, but won’t agree to a divorce because she knows she will be unable to provide for her two young daughters (the two sons will stay with Ali, of course). Ali must then come up with another scheme for getting rid of his uncooperative wife, and he uses guile, cunning and good old-fashioned blackmail to get the key players in place for what is passed off as a religious cleansing rite. (more…)

The biggest narrative challenge facing the “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is in the overcoming of its own title. With the awful outcome inevitable, co-writer/director Cyrus Nowrasteh is forced to hold our attention through means other than a curiosity over how things will end. Replacing this with a gut-wrenching dread awaiting the final act won’t suffice — not for two hours, anyway. This leaves a single, narrow and challenging avenue; the summoning of a rare kind of storytelling invention, the kind where the audience knows full well what’s coming but still hopes against hope some cinematic magic will occur to alter the unalterable.

In an impressive feat of direction Nowrasteh accomplishes this, making “Soraya” much more than a film of the political moment or a position paper on the Middle East. In a current events’ vacuum, maybe even set on another planet, the story would work without the benefit of allegory. This is a universal, human story, after all, but not the story of a victim, but of a woman’s remarkable courage and determination to free the truth.  This woman is Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and yesterday her niece Soraya M. (Mozhan Marnò), was buried alive up to her chest and stoned to death. (more…)

Cyrus Nowrasteh’s “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is a grim and solemn duty.  This is no popcorn flick, to be viewed and forgotten.  It stays with you, like your conscience telling you to do the right thing, the difficult thing.  

Set in 1986 Iran – the Islamic Republic of Iran – Stoning is a gut-wrenching film with haunting music.  Nowrasteh’s movie, set to open June 26, is based on a book about the crime by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam. 

The film opens with Freidoune (James Caviezel) breaking down in his car on his way to the border.  Spending unwanted hours in a small village, he is approached by Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a woman the villagers try to shoo away as they call her crazy.  But Zahra has a terrible secret.  She does all she can to get word to the journalist about a terrible injustice committed in the village the previous day when her niece, Soraya M. (Mozhan Marnò), falsely accused of adultery by her cheating husband, Ali (Navid Negahban), was stoned to death per Islamic law.  (more…)