REVIEW: Zar Amir-Ebrahimi Wins Award for Best Actress at Cannes for New Film Holy Spider
Zar Amir-Ebrahimi, goes undercover to catch a killer as she stars as Rahimi in Holy Spider, which was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival with her taking home the award for best actress.
Based on a true story, Holy Spider follows a female journalist from Tehran, that finds herself picking up a case that the Iranian authorities have no interest in pursuing. Saeed, played by Mehdi Bajestani, is a supposed family man who has an agenda to ‘cleanse’ the Iranian city of Mashhad of ‘unholy’ acts from prostitutes that work and roam the city streets each night. Saeed is indeed a serial killer who goes on to kill 16 women in the name of religion as he becomes obsessed with the headlines he’s making and at one point the media’s lack of interest.
Written and Directed by Denmark-based Ali Abbasi with cowriters Afshin Kamran Bahrami and Jonas Wagner, Rahimi travels to the city of Mashhad to uncover the violent deaths that have been making headlines, sex workers have been found murdered and discarded and no one has any leads. The murderer has the growing support of the public which is rooted in political, religious, and cultural misogyny.
Upon entering the city, we see a fearless Rahimi being treated with disdain as a female journalist even having trouble getting access to a hotel room as a woman traveling alone. They reluctantly give her a room after she flashed her credentials but not before they warn her of the morality police and that her hair is showing through her head scarf.
The police station is full of corruption as she finds them not caring about the murders until she takes it upon herself to attempt to follow leads. With no clues in sight outside a few bystanders who aren’t willing to talk, Rahimi takes it upon herself to go under cover as a prostitute to catch a killer and has the help of one lone journalist Mr Sharifi played by Arash Ashtiani.
Holy Spider is suspenseful and uncomfortable to watch as you see Rahimi trying to catch a killer by putting her own life on the line. We find that Saeed lures his victims to his home while his family is out and strangles them and discards their bodies in the woods. The story leading up to and throughout Rahimi’s encounter with Saeed is terrifying.
Upon Saeed’s capture, it’s with disbelief that we see the community rallying behind him as they rush to his defense that he murdered these women in the name of religion with Islamic conservatives touting him as a hero. Holy Spider is a must-watch suspenseful thriller but also a powerful lesson on Iranian power structures that are still well alive today.
Watch the trailer below.
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