Iranian musician, Shahin Najafi, has been called the “Salman Rushdie of music.” In the new documentary, “When God Sleeps,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 20, 2017, that parallel is put to the test. It largely falls short – as do other simplified, superficial tropes the film deploys about the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“When God Sleeps” revolves around multiple fatwas against Najafi – a musician and rapper who left the country in 2005. The fatwas (a generic term for rulings on issues of Islamic law by a religious authority) labeled Najafi an apostate for creating and performing the song, “Naqi,” which was posted to YouTube on May 7, 2012. The fatwas came out only a few days after the video was published. Najafi was living in Germany at the time, having received asylum a few years earlier.

Naqi is addressed to Ali al-Hadi al-Naqi, the 10th Shiite imam. In the song, Najafi implores Naqi to re-appear on earth, in the place of the Mahdi, and fix modern day Iran; the Mahdi (Muhammad ibn Hassan al-Mahdi) is the 12th Shiite imam, who disappeared in 941 but will supposedly return to earth on Judgment Day to save mankind. Najafi’s song implicitly ridicules the Mahdi for being “asleep” while Iran is desperate for help.

Within weeks of its release, Naqi had been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times (it has been viewed over 1.5 million times, since then). It sparked controversy inside Iran, with some condemning and others defending its message. In response to requests for a formal religious ruling on the video, several hardline clerics declared that Najafi had committed apostasy. A religious website in Iran, called Shia-Online.ir, took things even farther. It announced that an anonymous person “who lives in one of the Gulf Arab states has promised to pay the ($100,000) bounty on behalf of Shia-Online.ir to the killer of this abusive singer,” according to an article in The Guardian published around the time of the fatwas.

While apostasy can carry the death penalty in Iranian courts, the fatwas in this case were not court orders, and, in fact, were made by religious leaders with no political or judicial position. The fatwas also didn’t call for Najafi to be put to death. This made them very different, both in kind and substance, from the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie in 1989, for the publication of his novel, The Satanic Verses. That religious ruling came directly from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then-Supreme Leader, the country’s highest government authority, and founder of the Islamic Republic, which explicitly sentenced Rushdie to death and called upon the worldwide Muslim community to execute upon the sentence.

None of this nuance is explored in the film. Instead, by drawing parallels to Rushdie, the filmmakers lead the audience down a primrose path, in which Najafi, like Rushdie, is the subject of a state-issued death sentence, with government agents at his heels. To be fair, since the fatwas, Najafi has received numerous death threats, including during filming. While the movie doesn’t explicitly blame these threats on the government, the underlying narrative it weaves about Iran would lead any reasonable person to assume Najafi is being pursued by Iranian officials.

References in the film to Fereydoun Farrokhzahd, a poet, musician, and entertainer, who left Iran after the 1979 revolution, help perpetuate this perception. Farrokhzahd was an outspoken critic of the government and reportedly involved with the exiled opposition. He was brutally murdered in 1992 in the German city of Bonn, where he lived. Many held the Islamic Republic responsible for his death.

It’s easy to see why the filmmakers might want to draw connections between Najafi and Farroukhzahd, who was also an outspoken government critic, pop icon, and resident of Germany. But, easy parallels aren’t always accurate ones.

In gesturing toward both Rushdie and Farrokhzahd, the makers of “When God Sleeps” seem eager to depict the Iranian government as preternaturally obsessed with eliminating public figures espousing critical views of the Islamic Republic. About twenty years ago, when the government engaged in regular extrajudicial killings, they may have had a convincing argument. But, while Iran still does a brisk business of repressing and detaining dissidents, since the late 1990s, state-ordered hits on its opponents have become less common.

None of this is meant to diminish the threats to Najafi’s life created by the fatwas. In 2006, an Iranian journalist, Rafik Taqi, was labeled an “apostate,” by a cleric, for allegedly writing an article that was “against Islam.” The cleric urged anyone with access to the journalist to kill him. Six years later, Taqi, who was living in Iran, was stabbed seven times. That Najafi could experience the same fate is wholly unacceptable. But, suggesting the Iranian government has put a hit out on Najafi, when there is no evidence supporting that claim, does not make him any safer.

During an April 22 Q&A at the Tribeca festival, “When God Sleep’s” director, Till Schauder, and Sara Nodjoumi, Schauder’s wife and the film’s producer, were confronted with questions from audience members, who knew about Najafi’s story and queried why the movie falsely suggested the fatwas came from the government itself. Schauder brushed off the question, saying the film was about Najafi, not the Iranian government.

Do documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to address the political context that color their productions? Perhaps, not always. But, when they plunge head first into the issue, disclaiming responsibility by claiming the film isn’t about politics falls flat.

As most filmmakers do, the creators of “When God Sleeps” crafted a deliberate story – one in which Iran is a central player. The depictions of this player are not only simplistic and sloppy – they intentionally fabricate history. One scene in the movie is particularly galling. Najafi recounts how his military service (Iran has universal male conscription) made him lose faith in religion. As he speaks, footage flashes on the screen, showing an anonymous security official beating protesters. The clip is from demonstrations that followed Iran’s 2009 presidential election (something I confirmed with the director, after the Q&A session). Those demonstrations were, by far, the biggest civil disturbance in the country, since the 1979 revolution. Over the course of several months, the government cracked down violently on demonstrators who believed the elections results had been rigged.

Beatings, of the sort shown in the film, frequently happened, during that period. But, they are far from a typical or common place occurrence in Iran – in part, because demonstrations of that kind are so rare.

The movie mentions none of this context (the filmmakers were well aware of this background, not only because they knew the clip was from the ’09 protests, but also because they were filming another documentary in Iran when the election demonstrations kicked off). Instead, by using the clip to dramatize Najafi’s army experience, the filmmakers deceive viewers into believing that security services roam the streets of Iran, regularly beating civilians.

Why would documentary filmmakers traffic in such blatant distortions? Well, for one thing, the storyline appeals to Western audiences, which are the target consumer for this film. When it comes to Iran, most in the West have been fed a steady diet of turbaned “mullahs” and chants of “Death to America,” for nearly forty years. “When God Sleeps” comfortably slots into this one-dimensional world.

It’s also entirely possible the filmmakers were genuinely interested in the fatwa angle to the exclusion of all other storylines (and at the expense of truth and accuracy). Certainly, the fatwas were big news when they happened, grabbing the attention of various news outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian, and Salon. Of course, the story undoubtedly received so much attention precisely because it fed so nicely into stereotypes about Iran.

Whatever the filmmakers’ reasons, focusing on the fatwas, on top of distorting the situation inside Iran, does a disservice to Najafi himself. His insistence, in the film, on continuing to create controversial music, his unwillingness to cancel a show after receiving death threats, despite the risk to his band mates, manager, and audience members – all seem irrational and even narcissistic when the fatwa lens predominates. The brash musician comes off like a risk-taking fool, intentionally provoking the Iranian government in order to increase his own notoriety. Indeed, Najafi’s statement, “My songs didn’t make me famous. The fatwa did,” is the film’s most quoted line (it even features on the movie’s homepage).

Najafi’s decisions take on a different light, however, when his political history is understood. He may be a provocateur but his provocations are rooted in a long-standing political critique of the Iranian government – one that has continued for over a decade. Najafi doesn’t just lampoon religion or deploy provocative sexual imagery – he criticizes the Iranian state on a wide range of issues, from its treatment of demonstrators in 2009 to corruption and other general political problems. It is these views, and his commitment to them, that provide a fuller explanation for Najafi’s intransigence – one that isn’t rooted in simple exhibitionism.

While the film touches upon Najafi’s long history of political dissent, it is consumed and nearly lost within the fatwa storyline. What we are left with is not the Najafi adored by so many Iranians, but rather the “exile” the Western world suddenly realized existed only after the fatwas were made. In short, it is Najafi as byproduct of “the Western gaze” that is on display.

But, even with all these pitfalls, “When God Sleeps” is not without its bright spots. It does a good job capturing Najafi’s personal complexity. He is an anti-religious, anti-regime musician, who grew up wanting to be a cleric. He refers to God as a joke and “shit,” but says he is ultimately a believer. He is hard and brash and seemingly very rigid, while also displaying an earnest tenderness toward his friends and family.

In selecting Shahin Najafi, the filmmakers of “When God Sleeps” hit upon a fascinating character – they could have done him justice and created a more compelling documentary, if only they had told a story as complex and nuanced as the man they were filming.