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There Is No Evil (Sheytan Vojud Nadarad) Kino Lorber Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Mohammad Rasoulof Writer: Mohammad Rasoulof Cast: Ehsan Mirhosseini, Shaghayegh Shourian, Kaveh Ahangar, Mohammad Valizadegan, Mahtab Servati, Mohammad Seddighimehr, Baran Rasoulof, Jilla Shahi Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 5/4/21 Opens: May 14, 2021 Jean-Paul […]

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"The more I think about it, the more I realize I can't." Kino Lorber has revealed an official trailer for Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof's anthology film There Is No Evil. The film won the Golden Bear at last year's Berlin Film Festival, a prestigious prize. It features four narratives, each one addressing variations on the crucial themes of moral strength and the death penalty that ask to what extent individual freedom can be expressed under a despotic regime and its seemingly inescapable threats. Starring Ehsan Mirhosseini, Shaghayegh Shourian, Kaveh Ahangar, Alireza Zareparast, and Salar Khamseh. After winning at Berlinale, I've heard nothing but great things about this film, but coming from Iran it's a tough look at how hard it is to exist and live in such an oppressive society. Reviews say the film "pulses with humor, romance and life. Rasoulof has turned filmmaking into an act of resistance.

"I never intended to kill anyone." The 2020 Berlin Film Festival just wrapped up, and the top prize Golden Bear award went to an Iranian drama titled There Is No Evil. This film features four narratives, each one addressing variations on the crucial themes of moral strength and the death penalty that ask to what extent individual freedom can be expressed under a despotic regime and its seemingly inescapable threats (read: life in Iran). Berlinale has debuted a promo trailer for the film that's written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof (of A Man of Integrity), which is still trying to secure international distribution. Starring Ehsan Mirhosseini, Shaghayegh Shourian, Kaveh Ahangar, Alireza Zareparast, and Salar Khamseh. It's a big deal to win the Golden Bear at Berlinale, and from the looks of it, this film deserves the acclaim. I like the imagery (especially the scene in the pink flowers), and it seems like tragically accurate commentary.

Out of the total number of death penalties conducted globally in the year 2017, over half were done in Iran. The percentage has been dropping since, but Iran is still in the lead in that regard. Another thing, as we learn from Mohammad Rasoulof’s newest film that just won at the official competition of Berlinale is that death penalty is rarely being executed by professional staff, but in most cases the military conscripts, which means that the regular citizens are being made accomplices in the country’s crimes against humanity.

“There is No Evil” won the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2020

The symbolic empty chair for the director Mohammad Rasoulof who has been banned from leaving the country.

Rasoulof’s film deals with the issue of the death penalty and the ethics behind it in a series of short, loosely connected stories. The first one follows a seemingly ordinary man Heshmat...

“There Is No Evil” spends 30 minutes establishing its premise, and another two hours taking it in surprising new directions. Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s unfolds across four stories about military men tasked with executions as they grapple with their options, contend with the fallout, and witness the impact it has on the people closest to them.

Rasoulof, who has been barred from leaving his country since 2017, has made an absorbing ride defined by the paradoxes of its people. Nobody in “There Is No Evil” has it easy: There’s no simple moral code when every possible option leads to a point of no return.

The four stories that comprise “There Is No Evil” involve a range of diverse men and women enmeshed in various hardships impacted by the executions their jobs demand of them. Some of them do it, some of them refuse, but they’re all trapped by the same troublesome quandary.

In Iran, executions are often carried out by conscripted soldiers, which puts an enormous burden on the shoulders of ordinary citizens. And what are we to make of the condemned, for whom guilt can sometimes be a capricious thing, dictated by a severe and oppressive Islamic regime — the same one that accused Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof of “endangering national security” and “spreading propaganda” against the government?

When Rasoulof returned from Cannes in 2017, following the premiere of his film “A Man of Integrity,” he was banned from filmmaking for life and sentenced to a year in prison. But as a man of integrity himself, the director could not stop. His latest film, “There Is No Evil,” premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, where instead of being silenced, the government put on him.

The resulting feat of artistic dissidence runs two and a half hours, comprising four discrete chapters, each...