“Holy Spider,” a gritty drama about a real-life Iranian serial killer, shocked the Cannes Film Festival. It got a thunderous seven-minute standing ovation and woke up what had been a quiet festival up to that point.
Ali Abbasi, an Iranian-Danish filmmaker, made a movie about 16 prostitutes who were found dead on the streets of the religious city of Mashhad between 2000 and 2001.
Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi), a local journalist, is getting more and more frustrated with the police because they don’t seem interested in finding the killer. But early on in this drama, we find out that the serial killer is a war veteran named Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani) who seems to be a normal family man but spends his nights picking up women on his motorcycle and strangling them as a religious cleansing ritual.
“Holy Spider” is sure to be one of the most talked-about films at Cannes this year. The movie’s violence caused a few people to leave, but it was compared to David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac,’ and there was talk that it could be an early favourite for the Palme d’Or, says Variety.
The film, which was shot in Jordan, is sure to get a response from the Iranian government because it shows a woman without a bra in the first scene and has several sex scenes.
In Iran, movies can’t have these kinds of scenes, which Abbasi mentioned in a few words at the premiere.
The director said, “This means a lot to us.”
“This means a lot to my great crew, cast, and crew. But today is also a good day for Iranian movies. At last, there’s a movie where the women have bodies and don’t sleep with their headscarves on.”
Inside the Palais, people cheered loudly when he talked about how many Iranians at the time agreed with the serial killer.
“And for the past 20 years, I’ve always thought that the real victims of this story have been treated very unfairly,” Abbasi said.
“Even when people spoke out against this, they never mentioned those women. I think that a little bit of justice is being done here tonight.”
The film wants to be shown in the US, and it will probably start a bidding war among independent distributors who want to show high-quality films.
One of the two Iranian movies in competition at Cannes is called “Holy Spider.” The other one is called “Leila’s Brothers” by Saeed Roustaee.
Authorities in Iran have said that neither movie can be shown there.
Asghar Farhadi, who won an Oscar for directing, is on the jury for Cannes 2022, which could be an important year for Iranian film.
Abbasi shows in “Holy Spider” why he could be the next great Iranian director to make a name for himself at the biggest international film festival in the world.