Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: HOLY SPIDER [Cannes Film Festival 2022]

The progression of the conscience versus the idealism of what morality and religion play in the texture of society in an interesting quandary examined in "Holy Spider" [Competition]. Writer/Director Ali Abassi fashions a serial killer thriller playing in the texture of the prey while trying to understand the psychotic nature that finds it. The movie runs concurrently between Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) a female journalist fighting for placement in a man's world in the Holy City of Mashhad (doubled by Jordan) when the political system is angled for protection of certain religious values. The balance is in Mehdi Bajestani as Saeed who thinks he is doing his work for the common good and Allah. The psychological baselines as far as prejudices against a certain corner of the population and specifically who he targets (female prostitutes) is an interesting point of contention but completely wrong nonetheless especially when Rahimi puts herself in the line of fire.

The pace back and forth does not hide its character disdain but also places a certain blame on the common good, even when it cannot be fulfilled or is done for what the character considers legimimate values. Each tendency, strength and/or weakness of the victims is clearly defined when the character himself cannot...he only sees a symbol and not humanity that is having its issues (a continuing metaphor in some of this year's films). The movie actually begins with a misdirect where the viewer believes they are going to follow one character throughout the film and then turns it on its head for the specific reason to give the perspective that Saeed himself cannot see. When the movie shifts (like Law & Order) into a more perscutorial mode to show the actual mechanics, the reasoning makes sense but is resounded in the idea of saving face while still pushing for the better good (whatever end that serves).

But it is also an interesting irony in the repercussions and shockwaves within the family of the antagonist because it shifts and then downplays and then becomes tragic because the notion of the right behavior of the people themselves is skewed by the patriarch of the family and they don't know how to react per se. The movie works in darkness and uses Jordan to stand in for the holy city of Mashhad using mostly night to establish foreboding but also using drone shots to inherently build the endless city where all matters of life and death take place. "Holy Spider" doesn't really judge any of its characters for they themselves believe in their own destiny, though some are definitely more deluded than others. Some are just trying to get by. Some just can't survive. And some simply can't see the light in front of them, whatever that might represent. B

By Tim Wassberg