Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Mehdi Bajestani, Arash Ashtiani, Forouzan Jamshidnejad, Alice Rahimi
Ali Abbasi's Holy Spider features a female
journalist who poses as a sex worker in order to trap a serial killer.
It's a conceit plucked from a hundred 1980s straight to video thrillers,
and a fictional insert in what is otherwise largely based on the real
life case of the "Spider Killer," Saeed Hanaei, who murdered at least 16
prostitutes in the Iranian city of Mashood between 2000 and 2001. When
the film's heroine, Arezoo Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), takes to a
street corner for a showdown with the killer, played by
Mehdi Bajestani, it shatters much of the verisimilitude of what
has up to that point been a nuanced and realistic portrayal of the hunt
for a maniac.
Claiming to be on a mission from a higher power to rid the streets of
ladies of low repute, Hanaei found himself held up as a hero by many
sections of Iranian society, both during his killing spree and after his
arrest. Pitting the real-life killer against a fictional female
protagonist, Abbasi uses the case to explore the religious-fuelled
misogyny of his birth country.
Rahimi is a feisty heroine who at times comes off as though she's been
created to appeal to a western audience rather than represent a
realistic depiction of how an Iranian woman might behave in her
situation. With a backstory of having lost a previous job for refusing
to sleep with her editor, Rahimi arrives from Tehran in Mashood and
immediately faces misogynistic obstacles. Her hotel initially refuses to
rent a room to a single female. A police officer tries to trade
information for sexual favours. A cleric is unwilling to work with a
woman he considers of low moral standing. Working with Sharifi (Arash Ashtiani), a local detective who has been regularly contacted, Zodiac style, by
Hanaei, Rahimi sets about finding the killer.
That's just half the story however. Abbasi devotes roughly half his
film's running time to detailing not just Hanaei's evil exploits, but
his day to day life. While we're left in no doubt that he committed
monstrous acts, Abbasi refuses to paint his villain as a cartoon
monster. While never excusing Hanaei, Abbasi suggests he's something of
a victim himself, suffering from PTSD from the Iran-Iraq war, which has
led to him feeling tortured over coming home alive while so many of his
friends were killed. Having missed his chance to become a martyr during
the conflict, Hanaei feels he can please his god by killing sex workers,
whom he considers as human as the average person might consider an
insect. In what is presumably another fictional addition, Hanaei visits
his crime scenes while under investigation, listening in to men - and
shockingly, women – speak of him in heroic terms, even brushing past
Rahimi at one point. Ebrahimi plays the part with a quiet sensitivity,
not too dissimilar to Tom Noonan's portrayal of the killer in Michael
Mann's Manhunter.
On the surface Holy Spider appears like a product of
Iranian cinema, but its sexual frankness and upfront addressing of
misogyny marks it as the work of a filmmaker who is now looking at his
country from the outside. Unable to shoot in Iran, Abbasi filmed in
Jordan, but with most of the action taking place in cramped rooms and
poorly lit nighttime city streets, only those familiar with the city of
Mashood will question its accuracy. Small details of Iranian life are
utilised to make larger points, like how the female victims are
strangled to death with the very headscarves they're forced to wear by
their patriarchal society. Abbasi might be accused of being a little
on-the-nose with some of his visual metaphors, like how Henaei hides a
freshly slaughtered victim in a rug when his wife unexpectedly arrives
home early. For all the talk of how the killer and Iranian society fails
to view sex workers as real people, the film never really presents them
as anything more than victims, introducing each victim minutes before
their untimely demise in the manner of a slasher movie. Rather than
creating a fictional heroine, we're left to wonder why the
writer/director didn't focus his attention on memorialising one of the
real life women who lost their lives at the hands of Hanaei.
Holy Spider is on MUBI UK now.
