In the holy Iranian city of Mashhad, a vigilante known as the ‘Holy Spider’ strangles prostitutes to purge the streets of sinners. As journalist Arezoo (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) begins to investigate, she becomes entangled in a web of murder, misogyny and religious fanaticism.
★★★✰✰
Content Warning: this article discusses themes of sexual violence
‘Every man shall meet what he wishes to avoid’, reads the Quran quotation that prefaces Holy Spider.
The following pre-title sequence depicts a young woman, draped in a leopard print hijab, getting ready to work the dimly lit street corners of late-night Mashhad. Her garish pink-purple lipstick matches the shade of mottled bruising on her upper back; sexuality and violence are imbricated from the outset. A well-to-do, middle-class family man becomes her first customer of the evening. ‘I’m gonna rip that pussy apart!’ he screams, as a framed photo of his wife listens in from the next room. The next encounter is even rougher: the man refuses to pay the young woman as she didn’t make him climax, hitting her until she gives up her pleas and exits his car. Back on the corner, a motorcycle
approaches; just another trick it seems. Tomorrow she will be found dead, having been asphyxiated with her own head scarf and callously dumped on the barren outskirts of the city. The ‘Holy Spider’, perhaps Iran’s most notorious serial killer, has claimed another faceless victim – with no repercussion in sight.
This formidable cold open sets the tone for Abbasi’s somewhat effective yet markedly uncompelling social thriller. Holy Spider shifts between exploring the real crimes of Saeed Hanaei (Mehdi Bajestani), a religious fanatic determined to morally ‘cleanse’ Mashhad by murdering prostitutes, and the fictional Arezoo, an investigative journalist attempting to unravel the case of the Spider within a misogynist and corrupt theocracy.
Filmed in Jordan due to government resistance in Iran, the Mashhad Abbasi constructs is a grungy metropolis of moving shadows. As the camera pulls upwards to the reveal the holy city in its entirety, Mashhad’s neon-lit highways faintly resemble a cobweb of silk threads; or, more menacingly, the long thin legs of a vast predatory arachnid. Drug-addiction and poverty are prevalent, however the root socio-economic causes of these conditions (and consequently the necessity for women to prostitute themselves) are a cursory concern.
Rather, Abbasi deploys this backdrop to mount a critique of what he labels a ‘serial killer society’. This denotes the deeply embedded culture of misogyny that pervades Iran, from everyday interactions to the structures of its institutions. ‘We have a tradition of hatred towards women’ asserts Abbasi; Holy Spider is a clear attempt to both delineate this culture and counter it. With women’s rights currently at the very forefront of Iranian politics, this seems both an admirable and pertinent task. It is unfortunate then that the execution of this central objective is not only misguided, but also lacks the subtlety that such a complex series of issues necessitate.
A key part of the problem is the film’s fixation with the titular Spider, Saeed Hanaei. Despite Ebrahimi’s deserved victory for Best Actress at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, it is Bajestani’s presence that predominates. We learn significantly more about Hanaei’s life, motives and psychological make-up than we do about Arezoo, and certainly a lot more about the perpetrator than any of his voiceless victims.
This narrative subordination of women is further compounded by the stark brutality with which the killings are depicted. As the camera lingers on the bulging, lifeless eyes of innocent victims, one wonders if Abbasi had to include three of these murder sequences to make his point. The first instance is necessary; the third is, at best, a tired beating of the same drum, or at worst, a slightly salacious ogling.
If Hanaei literally strangles his victims whilst Iranian society suffocates them, does Holy Spider actually provide women with an opportunity to breathe? The figure of Arezoo may provide a potential space for female agency, however – as a white collar, educated outsider originally from Tehran – she is still markedly removed from the poverty-stricken populace that are condemned to try and survive in Mashhad’s dark underbelly. Perhaps Abbasi’s attempt to expose Iran’s ‘serial killer society’ would have been better served by investigating the real women who lost their lives, rather than focusing on the monster that killed them or creating a fictional surrogate.
The film’s final third shifts into a courtroom-drama style examination of the absurd support that Hanaei received following his arrest. The Spider became something of a perverse folk hero in the early 2000s, championed by those who felt his jihad was legitimate in removing the moral impurities of Mashhad. Abbasi’s denunciation of this religious fanaticism is clear, however his final attempt to posit the cyclical nature of this culture via the figure of Hanaei’s son, Ali, feels tacked-on and underdeveloped.
All this criticism is not to say that Abbasi’s film is not technically proficient or emotionally engaging; it certainly is both. Yet Holy Spider must be considered in relation to its socio-political context, wherein it does not possess the nuance to truly upset this all-pervasive ‘tradition of
hatred’. Leaving the cinema, you do feel the weight of Hanaei’s crimes, Abbasi’s genuine anger and the firm grip misogyny has on Iranian society. But in a historical moment where the women of Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan are protesting for their rights, it is a shame that Holy Spider seems primarily preoccupied with the grip itself, rather than helping to loosen it.
The Verdict
As a graphic, grimy Middle Eastern noir Holy Spider plays fairly well and ensnares you for the entirety. The pertinent discourses of women’s rights, structural misogyny and religious fanaticism cannot be ignored however; on this level Abbasi’s film has to be judged as a misfire. Worth a watch when available on MUBI from March 10th.
Words by Will Jones
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