Kermode & Mayo’s Take - We made Mark watch Dog Man – will it be film of the week?

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Dogman heads up Mark’s review slate this week--an anarchic animation based on Captain Underpants creator Dav Pilkey’s graphic novel series, where a lifesaving operation sees a police dog and his cop handler become one crime-busting half-canine hero. Plus, The Seed of the Sacred Fig—a courageous political drama about Iran’s authoritarian government from exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof. And last but not least, September 5--the tense newsroom drama starring Peter Sarsgaard, who is our guest this week... Peter sits down with Simon to discuss the Oscar-nominated drama, based on the true events of the 1972 Munich massacre, the first act of terrorism to be broadcast live on television. During the Munich Olympics of that year, the Palestinian militant group Black September infiltrated the athletes village, killing two Israeli athletes and taking nine more hostage. Taking place entirely within the newsroom, the film follows the efforts of the ABC sports broadcasting team, led by producer Roone Arledge (Sarsgaard), to cover the story as it unfolds in real time—and navigate the many practical and moral issues this entails. Sarsgaard tells Simon all about the unique production—plus working with his wife Maggie Gyllenhaal on The Bride!, and why he’s given up correcting people when they think he’s a Skarsgård. It’s a great week for cinema—get the Good Doctors’ takes here, and don’t forget to send them yours! Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Dog Man Review: 04:38 Peter Sarsgaard Interview: 25:44 September 5 Review: 42:01 Laughter lift: 53:11 Seed of the Sacred Fig Review: 54:34 You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A family celebration descends into chaos. A dark past is revealed. Feston. A piercing new opera adapted from Thomas Vinterberg's cult film. From librettist Lee Hall, nine-time Olivier Award-winning director Richard Jones, and acclaimed composer Mark Anthony Turnage. Feston. From the 11th to the 27th of February at the Royal Opera House. Tickets from just £8 book now at rbo.org.uk Here Mark. Yes Simon. What is up? What is actually up at your place?

I'm imagining you're in Cornwall. Very nice. And so on. And what's going on? What's that t-shirt? I can't even read the t-shirt this week. Bailey, brother. This is my It's a Wonderful Life t-shirt.

Oh, right. How many black t-shirts do you have with assorted white letters? More than I should. But the thing is because I, these, these come under the category of what Linda refers to as Mark's annoying t-shirts, which, you know, which say things on them, you know, like Wayland, Utah, honey. You go, what is that? You go, it was aliens. It was aliens. That's the thing. And then all the Bailey brother, which is what's that? It's a, it's a wonderful life. Or my favorite is polymer records, which is

the spinal tap thing. And then because people knew that I liked them, even though people get slightly cross with me and the ones which have got, you know, the, the surnames of band members like Tom Rosen, but then they know that that's what I like. So now that's what people get me. So now I've got like, you know, a mile high pile of black, big baggy black t-shirts with obscure things written on them that make people do exactly what you did. What's that then? So it's basically, it's like a conversational start. That's what it is. I think in many ways it's a conversational ender because I think people are looking,

I'm not talking to somebody who's wearing a t-shirt that makes me have to go, explain to me what that is. But then there's also the knowing look thing. There's the knowing look when, you know, the Bedford Falls t-shirt, people go, you know, yeah. I had one which just said LV426, which I was really, really proud of, I can't find it now. I've got more human than human, which I like very much. And anyway, so, but you've got banned t-shirts, you've got the, you've got the, what was the, I've got rid of all of them. The drunken floozies. Yeah, no, I've got rid of all, I've got rid of pretty much, I now only have plain t-shirts without

writing on. So in this here podcast, Mark will be reviewing some of these films. Dog Man, which is a new animation, which I was told very specifically by the great redactor, you have to go and see Dog Man, I didn't know much about it but then I'm glad I saw it. Seed of the Sacred Fig, which is a really interesting film. And are we calling it September 5? Is that the correct pronunciation of the title? September 5.

With our special guest. Who is Peter Sarsgaard talking about September 5 and his famous brothers Alexander, Gustav, Bill, Elia, Volta and his famous brothers Alexander, Gustav, Bill, Elia, Walter and his famous dad, Shtelan. Plenty of extras for the Vanguard, including these reviews. Reviews of Bring Them Down, which is an Irish drama starring Barry Kjogun, and The Fire Inside, which is a real life boxing story. Special edition recommendation feature, TV movie of the weekend watch list. One Frame Bag is related to September 5. the and the best film that we both haven't seen. You can get all that via Apple podcasts or head to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices. Seven day free trial is still available.

And if you are already a Vanguard Easter, as always with a slight delay and slightly out of sequence, we salute you. We salute you. There you go. And very soon we'll salute you even more as this year we're going large on awards season. We're doing a bunch of stuff we're calling awards schmawords starting next week with a mega cut of

all the possible probable best picture winners for the BAFTAs, SAGs and the Oscars. Yes, we've got everything you need to know to get you up to speed on the runners and riders. And we'll have how many Vanguard specials during February, March, Simon? One? More. Two? Even more. And we'll have how many Vanguard specials during February, March, Simon? One. More. Two. Even more. Yes, not one, not two, but three Vanguard only specials after the Bafters.

Bafters Schmafters will be dropping on February 17th, baby. SAG Awards. SAG Schmag available on Monday the 24th. I'm not saying my homies even though it says that here in the script. And finally, the big one, it's the ARIA Awards of the film industry, the Oscars. Oscar shmoskers will drop on Monday the 4th of March. Fam-a-lam. A ding-dong. The Vanguard will be able to hear Mark and I, Statler and Waldorf our way through the preposterous nonsense of millionaires giving each other gold statues. Mark, tell us about something that's interesting and is out there.

Well, this is an interesting case, Dog Man. Usually, in some weeks, there's like four or five films open. In some weeks, there's six, seven, eight, nine films. When that happens, I sort of have to make a call on which ones I do and don't. Anyway, Simon Poole, Redactor Simon Poole, sent me a thing saying, you are going to do Dog Man, aren't you? Actually, the stuff that I had looked across, because there's a bunch of awards contenders, I said, I hadn't planned on it. I said, you have to do Dog Man. You have to do Dog Man. You have to do Dog Man. Then I looked up Dog Man and it's a spin-off from a story within a story from Captain Underpants, the first epic movie,

which I remember really, really liking Captain Underpants. This is action comedy film based on Dave Pilkey's graphic novel series Dog Man. Of course, if I had young children at this point, I would have known that. There is a very interesting thing that when you get to the point that your children have grown up and gone away, you suddenly you're going,

I don't know what this is. This is written and directed by Pete Hastings, who had directed Captain Underpants, which I like very much. Voice cast is Pete Davidson, Lil Ray, Ida Fisher, Poppy Liu, and also weirdly enough, Ricky Gervais. Voice cast is very good. Ricky Gervais is the one bit of voice casting I thought I'm not entirely sure that, I mean, I can understand why you get Ricky Gervais to do it because he's funny, but he's the one voice that I thought actually I probably would have recast that anyway. So the story begins with the creation of Dogman. So there is this villainous cat, people who know Dogman will know this already. There is this villainous cat, Petey, who is attempting to be villainous and attempting to blow up a building. This cop arrives with his dog and they get to the top of the building. At

the top of the building, there is a bomb which they are trying to defuse, which goes wrong. And then the head of the dog and the body of the... Here's a clip that will explain it. I'm sorry to say, Mr. Cop, that your head is just no good anymore. And your body is no good either, Cop Doggie. Oh, I got an idea. Oh, tell me, nurse, what's your idea? What if we sew the dog's head onto the man's body? Great idea and stuff.

So that's what they do. So they sew the dog's head onto the man's body. So he's dog man, part dog, part man, all hero. But obviously because he's got a dog's head, he's a very good cop. But if you, he pines after a ball and if you throw a piece of paper, he will go and chase that. And if a squirrel turns up, he will be distracted. So meanwhile, the evil cat is doing all this evil stuff and dog man keeps arresting the evil cat, which keeps escaping. And then the evil cat tries to clone himself because he figures that if there are more of him than one, that will be good. But he gets the instructions wrong. Instead of cloning himself, he makes a little version of himself who is very childlike and innocent. Then the big cat tries to teach the innocent childlike cat to be evil, but that doesn't work. Then there's a whole bit in which he tries to revive the dead body of an

evil telekinetic fish called Flippy using this thing called Living Spray. But that goes wrong because the Living Spray manages to bring the entire factory that it's in to life. So then you've got the evil telekinetic fish, you've got the walking buildings, you've got the evil cat, you've got the dog head and the man, and then you've got the little cat who isn't evil. Anyway, that's the beginning of it. So like Captain Underpants, it's really entertainingly anarchic fare. I was really baffled about what the BBFC would make of it, because some of it, there's a bit in it in which the little innocent cat says Pippi Ty A Flippy Flipper, which is like, okay, fine.

That's quite funny. We know what that's a reference to. So I was looking at, yeah, I thought it was too. So the BBFC, God bless them in their straight faced way, contain, it's very much as violence, robots engage in fights here because there's a robot, there's a great big robot version of the little, the little cat is in the big thing and then the dog man is in a big robot thing. Robots engage in fights and throw each other to the ground. Characters also shoot cannonballs and laser weapons at each other. Okay, that's fine. Threat and horror. An army of beastly

buildings go on an evil rampage in the city, destroying cars and streets in their wake. Threat is often accompanied by comedy and has quick reassuring outcomes, one of which is a bit when the mayor says, let's just ignore the fact that the whole city has been destroyed. And then language, bad language is very mild, but and jerk, and there is mild rude humor, such as a robotic weapon being named the Butt Sniffer 2000 and a cat calling a woman poo poo head. Now, I'm sorry. Is that a PG or is that still going through on a you? I think it's a you.

I mean, honestly, it's one of those. I actually think it's a you. Let me just check this. I think it's a you certificate. But the thing is, what's really funny is when I turned up to see it, there's a friend of mine who we sort of see at screenings and he's very kind of, you know, there's a friend of mine who I would sort of see at screenings and he's very kind of, you know, very cross this sort of stuff. He said, oh, he said, Mark, so you came in specially for the dog man. So he knew exactly what he was

getting. And then Van and I sat in the back row at Universal. And I started laughing in that kind of, you know, really, you know youth certificate, youth certificate of a very mild threat, violence, rude humor, language, and upsetting scenes. And we sat in the back and I started giggling, and I laughed more during Dog Man than I have in many an alleged live action comedy. So if you've got kids who want to go and see Dog Man and you're a parent who's gonna take me, think of it as a youth certificate animation,

believe me, there are more laughs in Dog Man than there are in plenty of things that you've gone to see as grown-up comedy films. Obviously, if you know the Captain Underpants thing, you know the whole point is it's this absurdist, anarchic, unruly comedy. But I thought it was genuinely funny. This is something I wouldn't say very often to producer Simon, the great redactor.

Thank you for insisting that I did Dog Man, because actually in a strangely tough week, it was a little ray of sunshine. He'll be insufferable now, I think. I know. He's insufferable already. That's true. I also think just on the Ricky Gervais thing, I'm sometimes baffled by animations where they hire very, very famous people with very, very recognizable voices to be an ant or to be a dog or to be a cat. Do you remember when, um, in the history materials, when that started off, when it was the golden compass was that, was it called anyway, and they got Ian

McKellen to voice Eric Bjornsson, the polar bear and everyone goes, Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's him. It's Ian McKellen's voice. What you want is a proper voice actor doing a proper scary, you know, Eric Bjornsson kind of voice. And when you get

to it, so I imagine as soon as they get to the character voiced by Ricky Gervais, everyone goes, well, that's just Ricky Gervais doing the voice. There is a weird thing which happens, which is, you know, it's the reanimated evil telekinetic fish Flippy and the Flippy Flipper thing. When as soon as it starts talking in Ricky Gervais' voice, it's just Ricky Gervais. And that it's a weird thing. I mean, it's not the Laurie Harry thing. That's all fine. And actually, I'll officially, that's all fine. But it's just this one thing. And maybe it's because I'm British, but there it just, every time that character spoke, it didn't seem to me like that character.

It sounded to me like Ricky Gervais doing the voice of that character. I'm not criticizing Ricky Gervais. I mean, I think he's very funny, but I thought it was a weird bit of casting. The exception to that would be Robin Williams being Aladdin, who just kind of reinvented that thing. Yeah, but Robin Williams being Aladdin was like the body possessed of many souls, wasn't it? Because the whole point about it was he was one of those people who when he did his act, there was 58 different voices came out. Astonishing. Okay, so Dog Man with a big recommendation then. Big thumbs up. The good people at Supporting Shorts have emailed us to highlight that their short comedy film

Race to the Start Line about a young man who wakes up late for an important mountain bike race will be shown in View and Odeon cinemas ahead of Dogman. It will open in View across Wales in the first week and then around the UK in the following week. Odeon is programming the film to play in its Saturday morning kids clubs in over 100 screens. Supporting Shorts is a project created to make films in a way that supports and includes everyone. The project was created through tape, community music, and film in North Wales. You can find out more about Supporting Shorts on their social media, Instagram, Blue Sky, Threads threads and YouTube. And I use my voice

over voice for that. Just an interesting point on that. Dogman has built into it another short, which is a short for bad guys. So it opens with a short in the way that those Pixar movies, you know, would have like a supporting. So it opens with a short for bad guys in which they're trying to get to a parole meeting, but a million things get in the way. I think the idea of putting short films on before features is absolutely brilliant. It's a fantastic way of getting to see new and interesting talent. That is a really fantastic thing. So if you want to know more, look up Sporting Shorts, as I said, Instagram,

Blue Sky, Threads and YouTube. Box office top 10 this week at 13th, five to 11. Kathy Hart wants to email about the colors within dear blue and green. After listening to your recent pod yesterday, I was intrigued to go and see the colors within my family loves Ghibli and anime, especially your name. We all cry every time we watch it and weathering with you. I looked for local showings and showcase and showcase had two during the day and one at nine the next evening. So that was it. I booked for me, my 11 year old and my 13 year old.

We all agreed it was beautiful, gentle, wonderful, and a brilliant film. I'm so pleased I could share it with my two kids and the timing was perfect. My older child's only negative comment was that she wished the lesbian crush storyline could have been more fleshed out. We had a great conversation about Totsuko's serenity prayer and how my daughter thought it was to do with her crush on Kimi as much as her love of music and her synesthesia. When she discovered her own colour at the end, we each did, I like this phrase, very quiet affirmative noises. Thank you for recommending it.

Can you now do that for me, Mark? Because when I read this out this morning at 6pm, I made a little quiet affirmative noise to myself and I think it's something like, okay, hmm. Because if you make a noise, it can sound very, hmm, very kind of, hmm, not quite convinced. So could you make a quiet affirmative noise? Well, I'd like to say the first thing that you made when you said that was a quiet affirmative noise sounded like the thing that I'm not allowed to make, the noise that I'm not allowed to make in our house, because when I go hmm, or hmm, and hmm means, oh, don't do that.

I think a quiet affirmative noise is hmm. Yes, it's a little sigh. Not quite sure how to do I'm going to be rehearsing this all day trying to make quiet affirmative. No, but hmm is a way of saying no, you know, it's like that's the music goes, yeah, I think you should do this and I go, hmm. And then the good lady professor gets how about for doing that?

That sounds too sexy. That sounds like warm and affirmative. Kathy, thank you. Maybe Kathy, could you send us a voice note of a quiet affirmative noise? In fact, let's just throw that out. Correspondence at KevinMayer.com. Could we ask you to make quiet, affirmative noises? The kind of thing that you could, keeping within the code, so you will hear it, the person next to you will hear it, your family will understand.

It can't be sarcastic. It can't be taken any other way as affirmative. What does that sound like? Cathy, you lead the way and then everyone else can send us quite affirmative noises and then we can run a sequence of them next week. What do you think? Do you think that would work? I think it's brilliant.

What you should do is you get a sequence and then you should have it like on an app. So if you're feeling down or if you're a bit blue, you can just put on the app and you can just have this symphony of quietly affirmative noises. So send your quietly affirming noises to correspondents at codemayor.com and we'll just see what you make of that. Thank you very much. Also from around the world, because it may well be that acquired affirmative noise in Edinburgh is different from acquired affirmative noise in Auckland. So see where it is. Geographical placement.

Box Office Top 10 was still on there. Nosferatu at 10, number 15 in America. Yes, for R2. And I was hosting the Critics Circle Awards over the weekend and I saw Robert Eggers and still remain a big fan of the film and a big fan of his. And he repeated what he'd said before, which is that the next thing he's going to do is going to be the darkest thing he has ever done. Hard Truths is a new entry at nine. It's number 32 in America. Mike Chucklesley. I think you think the same thing. I think it's a really, really fine film. I think the performances are great. What I find most interesting about it is whether or not people find laughter in there because I think that the thing that

Mike Lee does is tragedy and comedy completely interwoven. But I was just really fascinated by it. As I said, the first time I saw it, I found the hard truths were very hard. The second time I saw it with an audience, I found the pansies really funny. I'm just very interested to know how people are responding, whether they find it more tragic than comic or more comic than tragic. I think it airs on the side of tragedy. Someone who identifies, this is via our YouTube channel, Alpha V6 Boy 1 says, I have manic depression diagnosed 30 years ago. I am 48, male, white, and I see myself in this character. So we're talking about pansy. It's brilliant for that alone that I can see myself in a middle-aged black female character.

That's powerful right there. So interesting observation. Thank you, Alpha V6, boy one. Hot Truths at nine. Number eight is Moana 2. It's number seven in America. Not as good as Moana, but still pretty solid. Five in America. Seven here is Flight Risk. And there it goes, tumbling out of the charts after briefly making appearance. Marky Mark Wahlberg's terrible, bold acting, very, very badly directed by Mel Gibson. Let us not forget that when Parasite won the Oscar for best film, Orange 45, also 47 said, can't we go back to the days have gone with the wind. The days have gone with

the wind when Hattie McDaniel, when she won her Oscar, had to sit at a segregated table because the Oscars were segregated. Brutalist is number nine in American number five over here. Dear Erno Goldfinger and Dennis Lasdon, says Ian Hargreaves. Simon asked Mark if there is any brutalist architecture in Cornwall and there is. New County Hall in Truro is a grade two listed building by Francis Kenneth Hicklin and Alan Groves built in 1966. There was an interesting piece in The Economist about how architects don't like the film because architects are always portrayed in film as sad, kind of loner and always male. Anyway, which I thought was quite interesting. We don't, I'd like to hear more from architectural, what is it?

Alcove, the architectures in architecture, Alcove, is that true? Is the economist right that when you get architects, they're normally tortured geniuses, male and working on their own. And the whole point is it's a collaborative effort. You know, architecture is not just done by one person. I would like to flag your very good interview with Brady Corbett because I was on a radio show, and it was a thing about the first 25 years of the century. And they said to me, and what do you think of AI? And I said, well, as Brady Corbett said to Simon Mayo,

when Simon Mayo asked him whether we should be excited or terrified and he replied both. You made me sound really smart. Thank you very much. Well, you know, happy to help passing on someone else. I get these opinions from somewhere else. Brady Corbett told it to me and then you told it to everybody else. So brutalistic number five, number four is Sonic the Hedgehog four at four,

which is a lovely thing. Yeah. I mean, it's done amazingly well. It's done amazingly well. Don't really understand it, but there we go. Companion is at number three. Here's an email from Paul who says, I thought Companion was excellent. Well, the trailer gives away quite a bit of the plot, as you said last week. I still found it surprising and great fun. It's certainly the best of the Terminator franchise since Terminator 2. Gareth Townsend.

Hello, good sirs. I went into companion knowing absolutely nothing about the film. The ideas in the film are really fun, even if they're nothing new or original. I did very much enjoy the underlying commentary on modern relationships, toxic masculinity, and controlling manipulative behavior. Definitely go and see this. If you haven't already, don't watch the trailer. I had seen the poster, but I hadn't put two and two together in my head. Thankfully. Thank you, Gareth Townsend. John, a Norfolk expat in Kent. I mean, so you haven't

gone that far, John, have you? LTL in FTE. I saw Companion last night at the Odeon in Belfast. Okay, well, you've gone a bit further. There were some things to like. One, Companion is effectively an episode of Black Mirror over 97 minutes. If you like Black Mirror, you'll like this. Two, it's only 97 minutes long. Three, there were no rapscallions in the cinema causing mischief, unlike in The Odeon Manchester two weeks ago for Yes, For R2.

Hooray for well-behaved cinema patrons, which John experienced at The Odeon in Belfast watching Companion, which is at number three. Yeah, I mean, I like Companion very much. Incidentally, well done for using the word Rapscallions, which really should make a return. One of the things that I was talking about last week was whether or not there was too much in the trailer. I mean, I understand that when they're selling the film, what they want to do is they want to show you all the exciting stuff too much in the trailer. I understand that when they're selling the film,

what they want to do is they want to show you all the exciting stuff that's in the film. But I had the huge privilege of seeing Companion completely cold, and I really, really enjoyed it. But it's apparent that people have enjoyed it even though they have seen the trailer. I just think it is one of the treats of being a film critic is that you do... It's like Dog Man. I wouldn't have gone to see Dog Man unless Paul had told me that I had had to do it. All I knew was that it started at 10 o'clock in the morning. It was the same with Companion. The element of surprise with Companion was great. I was genuinely surprised. The Fast of the Lion King is at number two. It's as good as it could be, but it's no better than that.

The UK's number one is still a complete unknown. Yeah, well, and there we are. You know, I know that you like it better than I do, but I don't dislike it. I think when we were first talking about it, I think you thought that I disliked it more than I did. I have issues with it, but I do think the casting of Timothee Chalametet is smart because I think that he

manages to get that kind of, you know, the arrogant insouciance of Dylan in that period, right? I think Monica Mabara's performance is terrific, although I didn't seem like Joan Byers, but also the attention to period detail is very, very good. The Judas at Newport thing will run and run. Somebody literally came up to me yesterday who I've met and said, of course he can say Judas at Newport. Didn't even say in reference to this or fan of the show, hello to Jason Isaacs. Literally said, oh, of course he can say Judas at Newport. It's the new, instead of saying hello to Jason, Judas at Newport.

Judas at Newport. It's the new thing. All right, Mark, Judas at Newport. That's the new thing. All right, Mark, Judas at Newport. Thanks very much. Love the show, Steve. And so on. Okay, that's the number one. So we're going to be back very shortly and Mark is going to be reviewing Seed of the Sacred Fig, and we're going to be talking about September 5 with our special guest, who is Peter Sarsgaard after this. This episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI is the place to discover ambitious films by visionary filmmakers, all carefully handpicked, so you can explore the best of cinema, streaming anytime, anywhere. Mark, what can people discover on Mubi this

month? So we have The Girl with the Needle, which was nominated for best international film at the Golden Globes, which is an absolutely chilling based on a true story by Magnus von Horn. We reviewed it here on the show. We talked about how it looked extraordinary. It was really, really disturbing, really, really got under my skin. There's also the first films first collection, which is now streaming on movie, which includes things like hunger, the debut feature from Steve McQueen with a standout performance by Michael Fassbender and also Pepe Lucy bomb,

which is the debut feature from Pedro Almodovar and is an absolutely anarchic riot. You can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com slash Kermode Mayo. That's m u b i dot com slash Kermode Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. Hey Simon, there's a bit of an international theme to the Oscars this year, wouldn't you say? Explain? Well, you've got Avian Brody emigrating to America, you've got Rape Finds in the Vatican,

you've got Zoe Saldana hunting singing gangsters in Mexico. I know what you're going to say. Here we go, you're going to mention the substance again somehow. Exactly, a French-British-American body horror co-production. Wherever those international titles are taking me or wherever I'm tuning in from NordVPN can help me unlock geo-restricted films and enhanced streaming. It keeps my online activity safe with encryption and threat protection. And it's the fastest on the market, providing smooth streams with no lagging. What's more, it's available in 111 countries.

How many Oscar contenders does that cover? I think every single one of them probably. Unwrap a huge discount on NordVPN by heading to NordVPN.com slash take. Plus, with our link, you'll get an extra four months free on the two-year plan and it's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. Check the link in the description. I know I will. What's up Mark? All's well. How about you? Well, I've been thinking about that cushion that we gave away at our live show.

Yeah. That and the pencil case. Imagine if we had a load more that we needed to shift. Imagine the riches. Every bottom or pencil case in the country would be graced in some way by our presence. Mason- Well, when you put it like that, we should have used Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide from people selling compasses to comfy cushions. Mason- And it covers all your sales channels from a shop front ready POS system to its all-in-one e-commerce platform. It gets you selling across social

media marketplaces. Oh, and it's full of the industry-leading tools ready to ignite your growth. Shopify gives you complete control over your business and your brand without learning new skills in design or coding. And thanks to award-winning help, Shopify is ready to support your success every step of the way. Sign up for a £1 per month trial period at Shopify.co.uk slash curmode. Now this week's guest is Peter Sarsgaard, an actor treasured by indie film lovers, think Garden State, who's also been

in plenty of big hitting blockbusters, think the Batman. No relation to all the Scarsgaards, but to be honest, he's given up trying to save people. He just goes along with it. We talked to him about September 5, his new film that follows the ABC sports reporting team, as they are unexpectedly forced to cover the Munich Olympics massacre of 1972. You'll hear the interview after this clip, which we obviously recorded before the movie got its Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. I know this isn't a responsibility that everyone wants. But does it make more sense to have a talking head from news take over from halfway across the world? Our job is to tell the stories of these individuals whose lives are at stake a hundred yards away. And our job is really straightforward.

We put the camera in the right place and we follow the story as it unfolds in real time. News can tell us what it all meant after it's over and I'm sure they're going to try. But this is our story and we're keeping it. And that is a clip from September 5. I'm delighted to say I've been joined by one of its stars, Peter Sarsgaard. Hello Peter, how are you? I'm excellent. How are you doing? It's very nice to see you. You've been discussed and referred to a lot on the show over the years, but the last time you were discussed in detail was when Maggie Gyllenhaal, your

other half, was on the show talking about The Lost Daughter, which you star in as well. I said to her deliberately, I said, that Peter Sarsgaard, he's a hunk. She laughed and said she would pass it on next time she sees you. But I just wanted to refer to the fact that you have been discussed on the show in very positive terms. We actually just finished, or she's just finishing another film, The Bride. Yes, with you in it. Playing a detective. That's correct. Okay. I'm already looking forward to that. I think you've been quoted as saying it's the best thing you've ever read?

It's the best thing I ever read. Reading that script was like reading a real piece of writing, which is rare with the script. Like a piece of literature? Yeah. Okay. You're not here to promote that film, not just yet anyway. Tell us about September 5, and Rune Arledge is the name of the TV sports producer who you play. Just introduce us to the film. Jason Bahlman Well, Roon Allridge was, in terms of at least American media, is probably one of the

biggest figures in the latter part of the 20th century. Changed the way that we view not just sports but news. It started with Wide World of Sports, sports program that kind of covered a variety of things, but then the Olympics, which for Americans at least, made it so that like Mary would want to watch, who never watched any sport, because we would learn about Spitz's family and his background, and everything was made into a story and made into an entertainment as opposed to just sport.

He then, after this event, became the head of news also, and he really brought entertainment into news, for better or for worse. Created like the celebrity anchor. So we had like a leading actor and their feelings about what was happening are part of it. You contrast that with the way that Jim McKay delivers the news in this movie, you know, which is one of the reasons I wanted to do it. We use that real doc footage. I said, okay, great, we have a leading man. Our leading man, Jim McKay, is trying to be invisible in some way when he's delivering the harsh news. Now we have anchors where their feelings are really a big part of it, right? And so that was a big change that he brought in terms of journalism. I think it's actually probably something that at this point

is worldwide. So the September 5 is September 5, 1972 at the Munich Olympics, and a story that many will be familiar with, but I guess a lot of people will not be familiar with. It's hard to believe, right? Yeah, exactly. I'm older than you, but still it's one of those things where you go, really, you don't know this story. So can you just do a couple of lines on what happens on September the 5th? Because this is a story which is told through a very particular lens. It is a news slash sports

room. That's where we are. That's where we stay. But what happens on September the 5th? Well, a group of Palestinian radicals took Israeli athletes hostage and the Olympics briefly stopped, but then actually it continued at a certain point. This happened in the dormitories where the athletes were living. Because these sports journalists were there and the news journalists weren't, they covered the story. They had this new piece of equipment that they were using, which had never been used in quite this way, where most of that Olympics were covered with a live camera or live cameras through a satellite feed. So they turned these live cameras, or at least several of them, onto the balcony of this hostage crisis and tried to cover it as it

happened and ran into a lot of moral and ethical questions in terms of how to deal with it. Mason- And those moral and ethical questions which you've touched on, actually you kind of introduced us to the terminology because you said Palestinian radicals. And in the film there is a what do we call these guyss. And in the film, there is a, what do we call these guys? Exactly. Conversation. And I think they take the cue from German radio that is calling them, if I've remembered right, so-called terrorists.

Right. And from that you say, okay, we're going to call them terrorists. We're going to call them terrorists. Yeah, I mean, they thought commandos, they thought, they had a lot of things that they went through. But yeah, that's what they arrived at. So what I think is so brilliant about the film is that even though it is really not a political film, you introduce us to these moral and ethical issues. First of all, what do you call these people still being discussed now?

Is our coverage helping the hijackers still being discussed in similar incidents? What happens if someone is killed on camera? Still being discussed, the morals and ethics of that, the definition of terrorism. So I think the genius of the writing of the film is that even though it is not a political film, it is very profoundly political. Yeah, well, you know, how we tell the story and who gets to tell the story is, for instance, still happening with Gaza right now. Depending on where you live, there are different stories being told from different points of view.

And the truth is that this camera pointing at the balcony, that image, many people have different stories that they are receiving from that one image, right? Depending on what your history is, what your personal history is. And I thought that the, I mean, they seem like naive questions because now we don't have just the one camera or a couple of cameras covering something. I mean, in some ways, this is almost like a submarine movie. We're in this dark space with all this equipment,

with a periscope, which is the camera pointing at the thing. Now we have everyone has a camera in their pocket on their phone. So we have a multiplicity of stories. And I think that that is one of the one of the issues. Yeah, I the thing that really drew me to the film was that I knew I was working with someone. When I met him, they wanted to get the story right. He wanted to use all the equipment

that was the real equipment. He designed the spaces exactly as they were with hallways that were exactly as they were. He rebuilt it. He didn't allow walls to fly out. He wanted it to feel like it was. Sometimes when we're figuring out how to use equipment, how do we patch that with this, we wouldn't fake it.

We wouldn't just put two wires together. He said, we have to figure out exactly how this was done. That adherence to the truth in terms of making it, I think, was important for a movie that was about trying to get the truth out. So that attention to detail, I think, is manifest throughout the film. What is also manifest is that it feels like an ensemble piece. You are the most recognisable star in the movie, but you may be accentuated by the fact you're working on a sound stage and we really stay in that place for most of the film. This is almost a theatrical piece. That's why I wanted to do it. I mean, I'm so tired of being in things. You know, many

movies are designed like a tent, you know, like where if the person at the top and then it gradually goes down, or a pyramid I should say. And I liked the feeling that we were all in the soup together. Frequently, we would have scenes where you'd have a line here, a line there, and everyone's sort of sharing the responsibility of not just carrying the story, but of keeping the ball in the air in terms of the tension of the scene and everything. That includes the whole crew.

That includes actors that have no lines in the movie or have just a line or two that you see in there. Those are all people that participated in the discussions of the way we did scenes. I mean, filming it was like having the most obnoxious film, like documentary film crew in a small room with you. We didn't so much ignore the camera. Sometimes in film you're able to really ignore the camera. We had to duck under the camera,

come around, miss the cables. Oh, there's a C-stand there. I mean, everything was very tight. Mason Hickman And the fact that you were shooting in Munich. David Schiff In Munich. Mason Hickman The variant sound stage. That must have added, I don't know, flavor. A free song. I don't know if you're working with German technicians. We are. Yeah.

And many of them from Munich. And actually before, so I was filming Presumed Innocent, this TV show. And I had them carve out three and a half weeks where I could go to Munich in the middle of filming Presumed Innocent. And I came and did this. It, very little time to jump in. And the most important thing I did before I started

was I went to the Olympic Village, it's still there. Those housing units are still there, students are living there. And I just stood in the spot and reminded myself that this actually happened. I know that seems like a very simple thing to do. You could do it from here, but there's something about standing there and saying, this happened that really

inspired me. Mason- Can I ask you, you were talking about the ensemble and the other actors that you're working with. There is a German actor who you work with, Leonid Bines. And I just think it's, this is a fantastic story which I'd like you to tell because she is there as the translator, so to explain what German radio is saying to all the Americans there. Can you just tell us a bit about it? Because she has a comparatively small role, but she's a great actor. Tell us about the way she speaks in her English. Well, she speaks with an English accent, which is kind of confusing.

She doesn't speak with a German accent when she speaks English. I understand it's that she had to work with a dialect coach. To have a German accent. Yeah, but she speaks German. I mean, she is a very, very magnetic, I would say, actor. She's the type of actor that could say nothing and the camp room would be interested in her. What is that? That's about having ideas in your head. That's about having a silent narrative that you are working on to not just space out or think

about something else. She's always, her mind is always working. You can see it working. She's got those big eyes where you can see it working. You can see it working. She's got those big eyes where you can see it working. I actually knew of her from Babylon Berlin and then when she was cast I went back and realized she was in White Ribbon, the Henneke movie, as a kid. That's gonna do your head in. Right? That's like one of the central characters in there and that was actually a date I took my wife on many years ago. Strange date movie.

That's a very strange date movie. But I just think Leonie Banish is about to be in everything. I think Teacher's Lounge from last year, tremendous, tremendous work. And it really is about that. It's about like she doesn't concern herself with making things complicated in order to be interesting. You know, once you start to try to like entertain the audience or you worry about their attention span, I would say you've lost them. You know,

you need to focus on the story. And if they're invested in the story and you're carrying the story with them, it's like Jim McKay in this movie. Which is Jim McKay is, he was a legendary American sports host. And when we see him, when you're saying, OK, Jim, you have to do this, we then cut to the actual footage of Jim McKay from back in 1972.

Yeah, and he was the sports MC for the Olympics. And the thing that Lee and he does that Jim does also in the movie is they let the story go through them. They don't let them be in front of the story. You know what I mean? Jim McKay is a filter through which information comes through. He's not in front of it.

It's hard to, I see so many actors that, I mean, we have reasons for being insecure as actors and what that insecurity does is it makes you think you need to do it standing on your head and, and in a funny accent and all kinds of things. And, um, letting it be simple is even the wrong idea because it's not that you have to let it be simple, you just have to let it be how it is. What do we see you in next, Peter?

Is it the bride? Is that the next thing? You seem to be working, working, working a lot. I don't actually feel like I work that much. I mean, I'm a very, I have lots of other things I like doing. And to me, acting has always felt a bit like being a baseball player where you get to bat two or three times

in a game, all told it's about eight minutes of the game. A lot of the time you're standing in the field watching a pitcher far away pitch the ball. So it's always felt like something that I had to have other things going on in my life to feel completely fulfilled, to be honest. So that's what it feels like to me. Being on stage is different. But yeah, I have The Bride coming out and then I'm going to work with Mia Hanson-Love doing a film with her with Mia Wazikowska next summer. Hopefully I'll find something else to do as well.

Mason Harkness I'm sure you will. I'm sure the phone will keep ringing. Peter Sarsgaard, thank you so much for talking to us. Peter Sarsgaard Thank you. Mason Harkness Thank you. Mason Harkness He's going to have to learn how to say Mia Hansen Lover. Jason Vale That's right. So I was thinking exactly that. Mason Harkness You've been doing it a long time. I have to say that I'd never interviewed Peter Sarsgaard before, but he's one of my

favorite, I think that's, I've been waiting a long time for that interview to go out because they keep, they kept on moving the release date for September 5th. But I found him completely fascinating, utterly engaging. And I love the film so much that I was just thinking, okay, I want this to go out. Cause that's what, it's a very thoughtful conversation, I think from an incredibly bright guy. And in fact, the thing I think he enjoyed talking about the most was other people. So he loved talking about the other screenplay

that he's just read, written by Maggie Gyllenhaal. And he loved talking about Leonid Bernes. And when he was talking about you can see that her mind is working, all of that stuff. I thought that was fascinating. Anyway, I'm a fan. Is Mark? That's the question. I am. And look, rather than sort of going back and repeating what's just been said, because it's been said so eloquently, if you're watching this review on YouTube or something, go back and listen to the interview first because the interview covers so much ground. So the thing to say is that you were talking to about whether or not people would know

this story. I mean, I have a memory of it because Mark Spitz was a really, really big character. My mom was a GP and they had a Mark Spitz calendar on the wall because he was kind of a pinup. He was a sort of larger than life character. But obviously what we see at the beginning of the drama is there's this stuff about the politics all right there at the beginning. Mark Spitz is winning and they're talking about, oh well, let's cut away to the German response and then because of who Mark Spitz is, let's do something which connects this to the history of where this

is all happening and do we want to have a political discussion about this now? So right from the very beginning, it's established that sport and politics are intertwined. But then what happens is that in the middle of the night there are gunshots, they hear about the raid and now people being held hostage. And of course, for modern cinema goers, I suppose you may know this story from Steven Spielberg's Munich in which what happened in Munich is the beginning of the story and then the rest of Spielberg's film is what then happens afterwards. But I think it will be in people's minds. But the real story, it was interesting. Sarsgaard was saying, what's happening in Gaza now, it's a question of, it's not just what the story is,

but who's telling the story and what do we get from seeing those images? So essentially, at the center of September 5 is this discussion about, okay, you've got a sports team and then you've got a news team and the story is now a breaking news story and they happen to have a camera that they can get that will give them live images but what does that mean? What does that mean in terms of how you report the story?

Firstly should you be reporting it in this way at all? Secondly what do you call the people as he said himself, do you call them terrorists, do you call them commanders, what do you call them and as you said they end up taking their lead from German news agency. And then, is their reporting actually having an effect on the unfolding events? Because one of the most chilling moments in September 5 is a moment when they realise that what they are reporting actually is having an effect in the real world, and it's a really terrifying moment. And I think that the film deals with those things really well because although it is about a specific historical event, which I knew about but I've never seen it told from this perspective

before, it's really about a much wider issue which is about what happens when you are reporting on an event and how you're reporting either affects or doesn't affect the world. There is a brilliant intercutting of the historical footage with the modern dramatic reconstruction, which reminded me somewhat of, do you remember Pablo Larine's No, because I think we did an interview on that and that's really well done in which they take the footage from the 1980s referendum in Chile and then they intercut it with footage which fits perfectly. In the case of this, as you said, when they cut away to the broadcast, they're actually

literally cutting away to the genuine broadcast. That's working really well. There's a comparison here with broadcast news, which is a film that I bring up all the time, James L. Brooks' brilliant film, which is about the way in which news changed from being news reporting into it's about the reporting itself. There's a moment in broadcast news when one of the characters says,

oh yeah, never forget, we are the news, because what's happening with William Hurt's character is that it's all about the way that he is reacting. And actually we see that his reaction is completely theatrical. There's a thing at the end of this film, which says that the broadcast in the film was watched by 900 million people, making it one of the most viewed broadcasts in history, which is really extraordinary. You also said, it's not political. But of course, it is political with a small P in as much as it's about the fact that the way in which you report something is political,

because all news is political because it's what's the story, who's telling the story. In chasing the ratings, which is really what starts to happen, they realize that this is a dramatic situation, drama almost kind of meaning artifice, and therefore it can be incredibly well watched. There are all these negotiations with the satellite companies about, we want to have the satellite at this time because we've got this breaking news story.

They start chasing the ratings and they start chasing the in inverted commas story. And as a result of that, the news reporting becomes a story in every sense of the word, in as much as it stops being what's actually happening and it starts being what they think will sell and they have to be first but wrong. I think the really sobering thing about this, and I understand why you like this as much as you do, and I really do because I hadn't seen this story told from this perspective before. When you compare what's going on there with what's now happening in a world in which you have Fox News, which is just a wantonly partisan platform for the incumbent regime, which will just repeat absolute

outright lies and untruths and never correct anything and never because they figured out that supporting Trump got them more voters than not supporting Trump. When you've got to that level of partisan coverage, what's happening in this film, it almost, I was listening to a documentary recently about Nixon and Watergate, and it's like a lost age of innocence. Oh yeah, he did something and he was crooked and everyone found out and then he resigned. And I think that there are two things happening. One of them is you are seeing the birth of a kind of form of journalism that now is at like pantomime levels of performance and inaccuracy. But you're also seeing people actually having the debate. You know, the thing about what do we say? What word do we

use? Are we qualified to do it? What happens if we show this story? Whereas now I think it is just simply a completely, particularly in the case of Fox News, which is not a news station, it is just a platform for political partisanship. And yet it is probably the most watched news service in the US. I found this engrossing. I found it sobering. It is still a horrifying story. I mean, an absolutely horrifying story. And when Peter Sarsgaard said that he went there and he had to remind himself, this actually happened. And I think there are several moments

in the film in which it is chilling that you remember this actually happened. But I think it's sobering, not just because of what it tells us about what happened then, but because of what it shows us about just where we are now and what an alarming thought that is. The other hugely irrelevant conflict that it highlights is as someone who spent quite a few years five live where it was news and sport, obviously that's what they did. It showed the antagonism between news and sport and the condescension from a lot of the in the newsroom towards sport that you're the sports journalist, there's no way you can cover this. To which, Sarsgaard obviously is in pole position to say, yes, but we're

here. And it's happening just the other side of the door. May I ask you one question? And not spoiling the film, films, obviously a historical thing. The moment in the film in which after they think that they've got it all right. And then that with that, they realized they haven't. Didn't you think that that sense of creeping horror that you realized that you've called something wrong was absolutely bang on the money? Yeah, because so the, so the presenter who Peter Sarsgaard was talking there, Jim McKay has to pivot from a certain elation that it's all gone right to then being told, no, it hasn't.

And how you, how you negotiate that and what your posture is and what the tone of your voice is, is all quite extraordinary. And the fact that they should never have said that he was doing it. We're watching him actually do it. This is the actual footage. Yeah. And it's genuinely, it's like the cold hand on the back of the neck, isn't it? Because they should never have said the thing that they said in the first place. And there's a whole argument about is it verified, is it verified, is it verified?

Then you actually watch the fallout of it. Mark Dunford in Crawling West Sussex says, dear anchor and summariser, full disclosure, I am a sports journalist, so I have to declare an interest. I was lucky enough to catch a special screening at my local World of Cine on September 5 and I was blown away. This is the kind of film that makes me love cinema. In the messed up world we live in, this film shows the important role the media plays in world events and poses ethical questions like deciding between what they can show and what they should show.

The attention to detail, I loved how they did the captioning and the tension made you feel you were right there in the control room as events were unfolding. The moment when they realized the terrorists are watching their live feed, it's in the trailer, that's not a spoiler, was a standout moment. The incorporation of live footage was seamless and made the drama and atmosphere even more authentic. John Magaro and Leonie Bines were outstanding with Peter Sarsgott and Ben Chaplin providing their usual quality. The last time I felt like this when I came out of the cinema was after seeing Spotlight, which I think is a fair comparison. This is the kind of film that should sweep up at the Oscars

in my humble opinion. Can't believe it only has one nomination, Tinky-Dee Tonk and all that. Mark, thank you. He's the current National World Sports Journalist of the Year, and the real EFL's 2022-2023 League One, League Two Journalist of the Year, just to give us... Well, and if you want to hear more about Leni Banish, you can find our review of The Teacher's Lounge from Kermit and Mayo's take in which she stars. And she is fantastic in that film. You can find that on the feed and do go back and have a look at that if you're interested in finding out more about her.

Once you've seen it, let us know what you think. Correspondence at curvidamay.com. And Mark is laughing already and that's great because we're stepping into the laughter lift. But you're stepping into the laughter lift with kind of joy in your heart, which is a wonderful thing. Here we go, play the music. And let the joy dissipate.

Mark, I'm afraid I disgraced myself over the weekend. To celebrate the end of Dry January, I came home from the local public house having drunk three small glasses of white wine rather than my normal one. So as you can imagine, I was absolutely pie-eyed. You know whom was not happy when I got in. How much have you had to drink? She asked angrily. Nothing. I said. Look at me. She shouted. It's either me or the pub. Which one is it? And I paused for a second. I said, it's you. I can tell by the voice. I have to be careful with such things though, Mark. Would you believe I used to be addicted to the hokey-kokey?

But then I turned myself around and that's what it's all about. And then we finish with a joining in joke. Okay, okay. Mark, I'm reading a Stephen King horror story in Braille at the moment. Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it. Correct. That's it. And that's how funny it was. Okay. So Mark's going to be talking about seed of the sacred fig after this. Hi there, Mark. Do you know why hiring the right people quickly is so important?

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Correspondents at CodeImage.com, there's another movie to discuss before we're done. What movie is that, Mark? Okay, so Seed of the Sacred Fig, and we should say since you've just been talking about films going on a long time, this is 168 minutes long. I should say at the very beginning, it didn't feel like 168 minutes long, but obviously it's a long running time. This is a drama thriller by Iranian writer director Mohammed Rusulov, who's made a species of fig that wraps itself around a tree and engulfs the tree and eventually strangles it, which is a sort of metaphorical thing for what's happening politically in the film. This is a sensual in Iran, but nominated best international

feature as the German entry will return to why that is the case. Also worth saying that it was included in Barack Obama's list of his favorite films of 2024. He still does that list every year and it's still a really, really fascinating list every single year. It centers on Iman, who is a lawyer who lives with his wife and daughters. He gets a promotion to

be an investigating judge in Tehran's Revolutionary Court. His wife is thrilled this is a step up, it's going to do them a lot of good, but he's told that he must remain anonymous because otherwise he could be threatened or he could be influenced. He's also issued a handgun, which he doesn't really know how to take care of. He doesn't sort of put it away in a safe or anything. He tends to leave it in his jacket. And on the first days of the job, he's asked to sign off on what is effectively a death warrant. And he says, well, in order to do this, I'll have to investigate. And they say, no, no, no, you sign this. And he then discovers that his predecessor was fired for not doing what he was told. So he's not an investigator, he's a stooge. He's a stooge who is being faced with a welter of this kind of thing because

there are protests, there are far-reaching protests, there are arrests, people are being arrested and convicted on completely trumped up charges. Meanwhile, his daughters are becoming very interested in the protests because they can hear them in the streets. They also hear about them from a friend who's become involved in the protest and who they speak to at night. I'm going to play you a clip from the film. I'll just tell you what's going on because obviously it's not an English language clip.

The daughters are on the phone to this friend of theirs. They're saying, oh, are they shouting slogans where you are too? Yeah, don't open the curtains, we don't want the neighbors to see. And then she says, listen, you can hear these chants in the streets of Down with the Dictator. They say, oh, did you shout too?

And the friend says, yes, I took off my veil. Says, you're crazy. So they're kind of excited, but also terrified at the same time. So here's a clip, just to give you a little bit of a sense of the film. So there's there's protests in the street. There's all this stuff about taking off the veil, taking off the hijab. His daughters are not meant to have any contact with any of this, but obviously it's going on around them. And then his handgun goes missing. They

help a friend who's been involved in the protest because she's a friend, and then the handgun goes missing. In the question of what's happened to the handgun, suspicion from his point of view starts to turn on his own family, on his nearest and dearest. We see the family descend into a sort of crisis which becomes a microcosm of the larger crisis of political corruption, which is that he starts to behave in a manner which is terrible. Now, the film is about the corrosive legacy of authoritarian rule and the way in which you can get dragged into doing something because that's the way

the system is working and because you become paranoid and because you're convinced you're right and how even a decent family man can end up becoming the thing he fears and dislikes the most. As I said, that collapse of the family is a microcosm of a much wider societal problem. I think the whole thing is brilliantly played, really gripping, nearly three hours long, but boy, it doesn't feel like it. Because you need that length of time for the central character's transformation to happen.

The director had been arrested and imprisoned before for speaking out against the Iranian state. The film apparently was shot almost entirely in secret. It was produced with financing from multiple companies in France and Germany. Then it was announced that it was playing at Cannes in May. When it did, the authorities in Iran arrested the crew. There was a new story that said they've interrogated the producers of Seed of the Sacred Fig following its selection.

They were subsequently prohibited from leaving the country. Their lawyer said that the film crew had hours of interrogation. They were pressured to convince the director to withdraw the film from Cannes. A week later, the writer-director was sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging and a fine and confiscation of his property because he had been making these films. So what he did was he fled the country on foot, ended up in Europe, although some of the people who'd worked on the film weren't able to leave. The footage was smuggled out of Iran to Hamburg, then it was edited in Hamburg. And whilst they were doing the editing, what they did was, and this is funny because this

relates to what we're talking about with September the 5th, they intercut news footage with the dramatic footage to create this extraordinary drama which now uses footage of actual demonstrations within the unfolding drama. As I said, it's become Germany's entry for the best foreign language film. I mean, I thought it was really brilliant. It's gripping, it's made with real peril. I mean, this is filmmaking that really you're putting something on the line when you make a film like this. It discusses a national malaise but in a way which works on a personal level because as I said, it's all about the family. It is a story about how very ordinary people can become part of something which is very, very extraordinary. I thought it was relevant, powerful, as I said, gripping and just the sheer fact of

what was involved in making it. I mean, obviously we've talked before about Jafar Panahi and people making films in an environment in which simply making the films can get you arrested, whether it's prison or house arrest or whatever it is. And then Jafar Panahi just carried on making films and then smuggling them out on USB sticks. So this is frontline political filmmaking, but just from a dramatic level, I thought it was really powerful. An email from Dr. Nima Gadri in Liverpool. Simon, Mark and the rest of the squad.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is one of those films which stays with you long after the credits roll. Similar to Last Year's A Beautiful Cake, it is a powerful portrayal of female empowerment with both films set within the context of the woman life freedom movement which arose following the death of Masha Amini in September 2022. The fact that director Mohammad Rusloff crafted this under immense personal risk adds an extra element. He was sentenced to flogging, as you've said Mark, and eight years in jail in May of last year, escaping his punishment by fleeing over mountains

by foot. One week later, his film had won the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The lead actress, Saheela Golestani, is barred from leaving the country. It deserves the award and I'm glad that it's been nominated for an Oscar. The film is a timely indictment of censorship and the erosion of freedom of expression. It is a story told through the microcosm of one family in Iran, yet the themes resonate universally. The performances are raw and compelling, the film's tension is palpable, and the emotional weight it carries is immense.

I felt the final third, in quotes, thriller bit dragged on, but the human drama within the film's political and historical context is remarkable. Mark has always been a champion of post-revolution Iranian cinema, and I hope that the seed of the sacred fig won't be any different. Teghedeetong, says Dr. Nima, down with the Nazis and up with woman, life, freedom, always." I think Nima has written to us before, but that is another powerful endorsement of Seed of the Sacred Fig. Yes, absolutely. My only disagreement, I actually don't think the inverted comma is thrilled a bit at the end, Drax. I could see why one might do, but I thought it earned that kind of generic section. And that's why we're saying that you need the length of time for the character

to go through the transformation the character goes through in order for the story to be able to be dramatic in that way. I think the best thing about Seed of the Sacred Fig is that as I said, I think it is a political film, but it's dramatic and you will be engrossed as a work of entertainment. I know it seems facile to say entertainment, but it's an engrossing, gripping drama, but it is about something really important. Mason- And that is the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team was Jen, Eric, Josh, Vicki, Zaki, and Heather. The producer was Jem, the redactor is Simone Poole. And if you are not already following the pod, crazy, crazy behavior, do so wherever you get your podcast. Mark, what is your film of the week?

Well, this is very, it's very hard because I think, you know, I think Dog Man is a terrific kid's film. I think September 5 is a great, again, a political thriller. And I thought the interview with Peter Sarsgaard was fantastic. So in an incredibly competitive week, saying that my film of the week is Seed of the Sacred Fig, not least because of what was involved in making it. I think that's the key point. But I have to say that all three of those films,

and I'm not being funny when I say that about Dogment, all three of those films do what they set out to do and do it really well. But my film of the week is Seed of the Sacred Fig. If you'd like to get in touch, please do so. Correspondence of Codemode.com take two has landed adjacent to this podcast, so we'll see you soon.