Cruel Summer – “The Stoning of Soraya M.” – Get me off of this rock

This summer began in chaos and clutter. Work all day, come home and sort through boxes of paper. Preparing for Nicole’s pa and Dixie to come visit in July.

During the first week of its release we went to go see “The Stoning of Soraya M.” Without the momentum that Nicole provided I wouldn't have gone at all. I wanted to pay for tickets, contribute to opening week success, but I didn’t wanta watch. Not my first choice for a movie to help me relax. I got the heebie jeebies anticipating the climax. In fact, I didn’t plan to watch the climax. I planned to slip out and go chat with the snack counter attendants during the stoning. Buy some Junior Mints.

Thirty years ago (yes, thirty years), the summer of 1979, “Alien” was released. Seeing it in the theater was out of the question, I had to wait until it came on cable TV and go watch it at my cousins’ house. Even in that environment I was scared out of my wits. I had already been exposed to the graphic novel (or “illustrated story” presented by Heavy Metal). The prospect of watching the film had my imagination going haywire.

"Alien" was certainly harrowing, but even at it's most gruesome it couldn't compare to what I had built up in my mind. In addition, it was also cool.

A cool aspect of "The Stoning of Soraya M." that I wasn't expecting was the Iranian lead actress, Shohreh Aghdashloo . She wasn't Soraya, she played Soraya's aunt, and much of the movie is seen from her perspective. You might've seen her in "The House of Sand and Fog" or "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" (I haven't watched those yet). I can't imagine that she won't be among my top five actresses of 2009, she has a fascinating magnetism.

The movie takes place in 1986, but in the rock village where Soraya lives, most of the folk seem to live like Jawas. It's bad enough to see injustice performed by Romans or Communist China but it's doubly frustrating to see mob injustice at the hands of Jawas. It's like the Wild West without guns. Actually the two guys in the village who have Kalashnikovs instead of rocks are every bit the hillbilly as their brothers, but somehow their guns give them a sense of technological sophistication.

Of course I ended up watching the stoning. As with "Alien", my imagination turned out to be much worse than the actual film. Nevertheless, even when I know I'm watching actors performing in a drama and even though I recognize "Well, that blood came from the hidden squib that the special effects guys exploded", it's still pretty awful to watch somebody get buried up to the waist and get rocks thrown at them until they die. Sigh. It's unbelievable that movies like this need to be made and seen. It's the equivalent of needing movies about parents putting babies in microwaves for tax reductions.

The most peaceful scene in the movie occurs near the beginning when Soraya is playing with her two daughters in a meadow. Like the rest of the film, it's still creepy because you know what's coming, but it's comparatively peaceful. When Soraya finally dies the film cuts back to this meadow, as if to say this place is heaven for Soraya, where she can be at peace. I was thinking to myself, "You gotta be kidding - she's still on planet Earth, Planet of Bastards?" Nobody is safe on this rock, she should at least be allowed to go to outer space away from the cavemen.

I can't imagine the target audience for this movie, but when we went to see it the crowd looked to be made up mostly of Middle Eastern folk and female college students. I kept my sunglasses on until the moment the film started to delay the experience as long as possible. Not a good date-night movie but I'll be looking for the next film that features Shohreh Aghdashloo.