Have you ever heard of stoning?
It was a punishment in which the victim was placed in a pit, then backfilled with sand, buried below the waist for the men and below the chest for the women, and then stoned to death.
The stones used in the execution were specially selected to ensure that the victim would die a painful death.
If the victim is guilty of adultery, the father is required to publicly declare that the person is no longer his child and to lead the family in throwing stones at his child.
The punishment is widely condemned by the international community because it is so cruel.
But in the Middle East, this brutal punishment still exists today.
The film to be introduced today, based on a true story, tells the story of an Iranian woman who was sentenced to stoning -
《被投石处死的索拉雅· M》
One
The story takes place in the 90s of the 20th century, in a certain village in Iran.
Soraya and her husband Ali have two sons and two daughters, but her husband Ali one day asked for a divorce.
Ali is a prison guard, and a death row inmate is willing to marry his daughter, who has just turned 14, to Ali in order to clear his name.
Although polygamy is allowed in Iran, the consent of the existing wife is required first, and it will be a heavy burden to raise two wives, so Ali wants to divorce and replace it with a younger wife.
However, Ali was unwilling to pay alimony, so he could only try his best to force Soraya to divorce.
It's not that Soraya doesn't want to get divorced, her husband usually beats and scolds her, and she is covered in wounds and bruises.
But as a housewife, she has no source of income, and if she agrees to divorce, Ali will only give her a small house, and she and her two daughters will not even have money for food.
The two sides are at a stalemate.
So, the cunning husband came up with a vicious plan to frame Soraya for adultery.
Hashim's wife, who worked in the village car repair shop, died of a serious illness, he was busy with work, and his son was intellectually disabled.
The village elder, Mullah, and the village chief proposed that Soraya be sent to Hashim's house as a nanny.
Soraya, who wanted to make money to get rid of her husband, did not hesitate to take the job.
Ali took the opportunity to spread the word that Soraya was unruly and committed adultery with Hashem. Then find the village chief and ask the village chief to execute Soraya for adultery.
The cunning Ali also threatened the elder Mullah (who had a handle in Ali's hands) and Hashem (who Ali threatened with his mentally retarded son) to commit perjury and frame Soraya.
As a result, Soraya was convicted of adultery and sentenced to stoning.
Soraya's aunt, Zahanhara, wanted to run away with Soraya, but all the exits were guarded and watched by the men, and there was nowhere to escape.
Soraya knew that her life was short, and she explained the aftermath to the children.
The young daughters are still ignorant.
But the sons looked at their mother with disgust and disgust, and under the influence of their father, they also thought that the mother had sinned and should be put to death.
Two
The highlight of the film is the stoning in the second half.
Before the execution, the village chief asked Soraya what else he had to say, and Soraya asked them sadly:
"It seems that you don't know me, how can you do this to me, I am your neighbor, your mother, your daughter, your wife, how can you treat people like this?"
Yes, even if it was a stranger, he would not use such torture to mutilate her.
Dressed in a white wedding dress, Soraya had her hands tied and stuffed into a pre-dug pit where the lower half of her body was buried, revealing only her upper body.
Her father, publicly announcing that Soraya was no longer his daughter, threw stones at her. Perhaps because of the love of flesh and blood, I couldn't bear it, and my father threw stones a few times, but he was not allowed.
At this time, an old woman in the crowd shouted, this is the will of Allah, misjudged Soraya.
Hearing the questioning, her husband Ali hurriedly threw out stones with all his strength, throwing several stones at Soraya in a row.
The white wedding dress on Soraya's chest was instantly stained red with blood.
At this moment, the crowd erupted in loud applause.
Ali called his sons and gave them the stone.
With the encouragement of the adults, the two children hesitated for a moment and threw the stone at their mother with all their might.
The onlookers, seeing that Soraya's family members had finished smashing, raised stones one after another and smashed them viciously at Soraya.
Soraya let out a cry of pain, bleeding more and more, until she was smashed into a blur of flesh.
Soraya is dead, and the killers are her father, her husband, her son, and the men of the village.
Ali succeeded in his treacherous plan and laughed happily.
Soraya was not allowed to be buried in the village, so her aunt Zahanhara and several women in the village secretly moved Soraya's body to the river to find a clean resting place for her.
But the smell of blood attracted wild dogs, and only a few bones were gnawed away from Soraya's corpse......
Later, Zanhara happened to meet a reporter passing by the village, who told the reporter what happened to Soraya and asked him to record it with a tape recorder.
She hopes that the voice of her complaint will be heard by the whole world.
Later, the reporter wrote the story into a novel. And this movie is based on this novel.
Three
There are a lot of details in the film that reveal how low the status of women is in the area.
For example, because of her family's poverty, Soraya was fostered from an early age in the home of a man who did everything she could to her, except that she did not have sexual intercourse.
After getting married, Soraya not only had to endure her husband's domestic violence, but even her son could reprimand her.
Ali asked for a divorce and took only his two sons with him, but ignored his two daughters.
The law also required that if a wife sued her husband, she must produce evidence. And if the husband accuses his wife, he asks her to prove her innocence.
Under such outrageous laws, women simply cannot defend themselves.
Here, women are considered private property, not protected by social culture and law, and even a bizarre reason, such as being raped, suspected of adultery, not being able to give birth to a son, dressing fashionably, etc., can be mercilessly killed by relatives.
This is also known as a "honour killing".
Children grow up in such an environment that women are numb to the shackles of traditional thinking and men are arrogant.
These regions have always used tradition as a cover for their own ugly vices.
But in the context of globalization, these ugly traditions become more ugly and abrupt.
There may be no absolutely correct values in the world, but we must expose and resist the "evil" that crosses the bottom line.