Watched in the cinema (6th visit in 2023)

Accompanying a serial killer in his murders and a journalist in her search for his identity as an audience initially sounds like a fairly random serial killer film. And yes, "Holy Spider" has many characteristics of genre colleagues, especially in the first half. Psychologisation of the perpetrator, ego games through reporting on murders, communication with the police or the press, all this is nothing new. In the second half at the latest, however, "Holy Spider" goes in a slightly different direction. It is not only the police, etc. that are criticised here, but ultimately an entire society. Little by little, Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani) receives more and more confirmation from the public.

Rarely has a serial killer been made so socially acceptable. It is shocking what rejection the victims receive and what affection the perpetrator receives. A man from the middle of society, loved by his family, adored by society. What is particularly exciting is how well the film manages to create almost something like sympathy for the perpetrator. Of course, these are only ever isolated moments until you realise what is happening here, but it shows very impressively how quickly we are prepared to accept something when we are told again and again that it is okay after all.

Convention plays a central role in this. Without convention or the questioning of it, such an appearance of a murderer is not possible. And as it turns out, without questioning convention, the rule of law and ultimately a functioning society is not possible. The crucial keyword here is morality police. Because the consequence of a police force that controls people beyond the law, that restricts them, is on the one hand the absence of the rule of law and on the other hand a complete mistrust among the population.

What this looks like in practice is shown, among other things, by the obstacles Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) faces. On the one hand, there is the complete helplessness in the face of authorities and ultimately their desire to cooperate, and on the other hand, the dysfunctionality of a completely poisoned society, be it mistrust of the media, misogyny, the rejection of the educated middle classes, etc. "Holy Spider" paints a picture of a society that is deeply divided ideologically and socially, has forgotten how to be mature and is only looking to conform to a majority, even if it is in supporting a serial killer. What emerges is a system that becomes ever more self-reinforcing, as the end of the film suggests and the reality tragically demonstrates.

Accordingly, "Holy Spider" is also dark, hopeless and unambiguous. While other Iranian filmmakers such as Asghar Farhadi or the now imprisoned Jafar Panahi also criticise the Iranian government and society in their films, this is often done ambivalently and with a residual respect for the country and its people. In "Holy Spider" this is different. Director and co-screenwriter Ali Abbasi, who left Iran in 2002, paints a picture of a rotten country. The government, authorities and large sections of the public are portrayed as morally corrupt and hypocritical, without respect for human dignity and human rights.

In terms of staging, "Holy Spider" is therefore repeatedly reminiscent of a film noir, which, accompanied by spherical and droning sounds, aims above all to show the ugly face of a city, a country, a society. Carried by vast and empty images, more a littered concrete desert than a holy city, Mashhad itself is only a reflection for a society. A city whose religious, cultural and spiritual significance is incomparable in Iran and therefore the destination of millions of pilgrims every year, but at the same time the plot of such a grotesque play. It is therefore particularly interesting that the film was not shot in Mashhad but in Jordan, something Abbasi justified in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter not only with political necessity but also with the interchangeability of Middle Eastern cities.

This at the latest makes it clear that "Holy Spider" is a film that seeks complete confrontation and is only slightly interested in moral ambivalence or nuances. Overdramatised, overstylised and only confirming the West's image of a country at the bottom, scourged by an overpowering and arch-conservative clergy. One could accuse the film of that, and one would probably be right somewhere. But the question is whether such a film is needed at the moment. A film that calls for gentle reforms instead of a film that carries the anger for the last 43 years of misdevelopment. And "Holy Spider" is exactly that film. "Holy Spider" is not a nuanced portrait of the Iranian people, but it doesn't want to be. It wants to be the fuel for a mood of departure, a mood of change, a mood of revolution. And it succeeds in that.