Holy Spider begins in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, when a man picks up sex workers in the middle of the night, takes them to his residence, and strangles them with their scarves. Every time he kills a woman, he calls a local journalist named Sharifi (Arash Ashtiani) to inform him of the location of the body. This serial killer is dubbed “the spider” by the press because of his method of killing. As the murders continue, Arezoo Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), a female journalist, arrives from Tehran to investigate. Being a woman, she finds it difficult to navigate her way around authorities such as the police and court officials, as they are mostly men who do not take her seriously. After receiving no support from law enforcement, Rahimi decides to take matters into her own hands and begins her inquiry with Sharifi’s assistance.
Holy Spider, Ali Abbasi’s sophomore film after the critically acclaimed Border (2018), is a serial killer movie with a heavy subtext about Iranian society and its treatment of women. He does not conceal the serial killer and reveals him right away. Saeed Hanaei (Mehdi Bajestani) is a construction worker and a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He is also a family man, as he has a wife, Fatima (Forouzan Jamshidnejad), and two children. Apart from being a serial killer, he is a civil and adoring father who, surprisingly, loves and respects his wife.
Saeed is struggling to find meaning in his life after the war. He begins murdering sex workers under the pretense that these women with vices are corrupt and must be exterminated from society. Saeed believes that by murdering these women, he is carrying out God’s will and doing something worthwhile. In actuality, though, his desire to kill is triggered whenever he feels worthless. There’s a scene where Saeed and his family go to see Fatima’s mother. They stop for a picnic in a park along the way. Saeed gets angry when his eldest son, Ali, accidentally hits him in the head while playing football. After chasing Ali and failing to catch him, he breaks down and cries, feeling helpless. Saeed drops off his family at Fatima’s mother’s place, feigns an excuse, and leaves in a hurry. That night, he picks up a hooker and kills her. While cleaning up after the dead body, his wife unexpectedly returns home, prompting him to hastily wrap the body in a blanket and place it in the corner of the room. He and Fatima talk and eventually have sex while the dead body is still in the room, with its leg sticking out of the blanket. Abbasi builds up the tension before abruptly cutting the scene without letting us know how it ends. I’d be curious to see how Saeed would dispose of that body in that small house with his wife around.
When Rahimi decides to investigate the murders on her own, the film becomes predictable. However, once Saeed is captured, the film takes an unexpected turn. The shocking reaction of society to Saeed’s actions exemplifies the oppressive mentality of the people, especially toward women. These men have drawn a line for women by enforcing specific rules that suit their needs. The more these women cross the line, the more exploitative they are to these men, who condemn, shame, and look down on them. For instance, when a police officer learns that Rahimi smokes, he starts judging her and calls her “that type of woman.”
Holy Spider deftly examines how the mob mentality can transform a villain into a hero and what happens when society’s children begin to revere these criminals. This aspect is what Abbasi emphasizes towards the film’s conclusion, when Saeed’s son Ali vehemently defends his father, referring to him as a superhero who did God’s work and aspires to be like him.
The film is based on real events from 2001, when a man murdered sixteen prostitutes in the name of God. Abbasi was a student in Iran at the time and claimed to have been surprised by the conservative reaction of the people to the entire situation. Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who played Arezoo Rahimi, won the prestigious Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival last year. She plays her part as a one-woman she-wolf, fighting misogyny, sexism, and women’s oppression while still doing her job against all odds. Ebrahimi was exiled from Iran in 2008 after being implicated in a sex tape scandal that shook the country in 2006. Her lover, an assistant producer, leaked the sex tape, which resulted in a ten-year ban from Iranian movies for her. She fled to Paris in 2008 and restarted her career after being threatened with arrest in Iran for shooting a sex tape, which is illegal in the country. Mehdi Bajestani balances his act as a serial killer who brutally murders women with his act as a family man who is gentle and caring and loves his family with tremendous conviction.
Even though Holy Spider’s premise is not entirely unique, the depiction of Iran’s oppressive society and the treatment of women reflect the present situation in Iran, where women are still protesting and fighting for their freedom.
Holy Spider movie link: IMDB
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