‘Cutting Through Rocks’: Sundance Review

Dir/scr: Sara Khaki, Mohammadreza Eyni Iran/Netherlands/USA/Germany/Qatar/Chile/Canada. 2025. 95mins

Chopping By Rocks tracks the heroic struggles of native girl Sara Shaverdi to change the normal mindset of her Iranian village neighborhood. Husband-and-wife crew Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni doc the primary glimmers of social change with honesty, subtlety and guarded optimism, and their compelling movie appears to be like set to chop by means of to additional, debate-inspiring competition screenings following its premiere in Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic competitors.

Shot from inside its neighborhood, Rocks is greater than merely a polemic

Rocks crams seven years’ price of shot footage into its 95 minutes, spanning the total arc of Sara’s expertise. It’s seamlessly edited by Eyni, who’s from an identical village and speaks Azeri, or Azerbaijani Turkish – essential in getting entry for the shoot and maybe for the unguarded frankness of among the villagers.

By Sara’s voiceover, we be taught that her father most popular having male kids to feminine. He raised her as somebody who retains a cautious eye on gender roles, instructing Sara learn how to journey a motorcycle and do building work on the farm, even permitting her to decide on her personal garments. Married however now divorced, Sarah’s unconventionality is accepted, or not less than tolerated, by the boys of her village – partly as a result of, in addition to checking out their funds, she can also be the native midwife.

Sara now intends to change into the primary feminine native councillor. She rides round on her trusty motorbike, drumming up assist in an area all-girls faculty by telling the scholars that they need to begin to consider themselves as attorneys and medical doctors, not as housewives – however altering their minds is just not as straightforward because it appears. In the meantime, the native males suck on their pipes and mutter about how no good will come of this. Sara guarantees massive adjustments within the village, particularly that she’s going to carry gasoline to individuals’s homes – one thing the male-run councils have by no means achieved.

Buoyed by the votes of girls and youthful males, Sara wins by a landslide and gasoline does certainly begin to be piped in. However the first indicators of resistance come after Sara tries to encourage the village males to call their wives as part-owners of the houses they share. Additionally, to her chagrin, she is refused entry to the rubber stamp which might usually come together with her new job – the stamp which is critical to log off corrupt offers. She is maybe doing an excessive amount of, too quick, and the second a part of the movie focuses on the growing resistance to Sara’s transformational plans. Finally she shall be dropped at court docket, the place one thing extraordinary shall be required of her; one thing which can strike on the very coronary heart of her id, and can out of the blue take the movie into different up to date points.

There’s so much happening, and it’s all skilfully parcelled out. At a extra intimate stage, we’re proven the tender relationship between Sara and Fereshteh, a teenage lady searching for a divorce who’s granted permission to stay with Sara whereas the separation is being finalised. Sara units about educating Fereshteh as she herself was educated by her beloved father. Within the movie’s predominant image of feminine empowerment and freedom Fereshteh learns to journey a motorbike, the rides dramatically shot towards the extensive, dry expanses of the north west Iranian panorama.

Shot from inside its neighborhood, Rocks is greater than merely a polemic, although, and is cautious to root its message in sequences of day-to-day actuality. For girls, in fact, components of that actuality are nonetheless fairly grim: inconsiderate sexism remains to be deeply embedded within the tradition and is unquestioningly submitted to by all. Sara Shaverdi is a exceptional girl however, relatively than body her as some sort of superhero, Khaki and Eyni properly select to painting her as a flawed however passionate, powerful, and resilient human being – the rock-cutter of the title. Sara is aware of that ladies may very well be main a special life, as a result of she herself resides it. What she doesn’t rely on is that the change she seeks can’t be caused by one single particular person.

Visually, Chopping By Rocks performs it fairly straight. However there are occasional stylistic thrives; for instance, silhouetting Sara towards a strong sky to underscore the isolation she generally feels. Although native music is employed all through, the selection was made to make use of Karim Sebastian Elias’s western rating, which provides a touch of wistfulness on the few factors the place it’s discreetly introduced in.