I have seen the body of the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s films. He won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar twice (for “A Separation” and “The Salesman”) and his new film, “A Hero,” won the Grand Prix at Cannes. In the main, his works are centered on life in modern-day Iran, evoking a world built on class and gender divisions that complicate individual behavior and decision-making even more than is usual for human beings living in the 21st century.
Farhadi is a social realist who looks at the dynamics of individual and familial interactions fraught with difficulties. Though he has avoided overt politics in his films, he writes of how he has had his passport confiscated and been interrogated at airports, been told not to return to Iran, and has remained silent in the face of the government’s “accusations and name-calling.” It’s hard to be an artist and maintain one’s own personal vision in theocratic, highly traditional Iran.
But in his films, what is central is his depiction of flawed characters — not symbolic political figures — making decisions whose moral ground is hard to define. Nothing is ever simple in the choices they must make; everything is laced with ambiguity, and they augment the confusion with evasions and half-truths. The characters are rarely explored internally, but seen in the context of the choices they make. Farhadi’s films depict ordinary situations and problems that can’t be easily resolved.
“A Hero” focuses on Rahim (Amir Jadidi), whose failure to repay a creditor, Bahram (the brother of his angry ex-wife), has earned him an ongoing jail term. The brother-in-law justifiably remains harsh and unforgiving, since his own daughter’s dowry has been erased by Rahim’s debts.
Rahim is a divorced father with a nervous tic-like smile and a gentle, halting manner of speech. He projects both decency and a haplessness conveyed by his inability to keep his life together. The jail is a debtors’ prison without bars, where the prisoners play soccer in a rec hall and can take leaves.
On a two-day leave, Rahim visits with his loyal sister and brother-in-law, who take care of his sweet-natured, stuttering son. He drops in on his totally enamored, secret girlfriend Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust) who has stumbled on a lost purse with gold coins, which hopefully will lead to Rahim’s redemption. So when Rahim advertises he would like to return the lost bag, the media pick up the story and cast him as a humble hero who has honorably forfeited a great deal of money to do the right thing.
It’s not only the media, but also the prison authorities who want to use Rahim’s act to garner positive publicity (“a model prisoner”) for their institution. But this moment of Rahim’s triumph — the acquiring of a charity’s gift in order to pay his debt — is suddenly undone by a tangle of half-truths that blur the nature of his story and reward. Still, one feels he is a man who is given to getting trapped often in morasses of this nature. Although his engaging in subterfuge and his willingness to drag his son along to arouse compassion makes his persona less sympathetic.
Farhadi’s narrative is far from neat. For, as the plot unfolds down intricate paths, it’s messy like life is. The conclusion is a bittersweet one, with a touch of moral redemption even though the idea for Rahim’s virtuous act is his girlfriend’s. There are no righteous or villainous people among the central figures, only ambiguous ones. But some of the power of the film is undermined by the excessive plot turns.
“A Hero” is playing now at Film Forum NYC.
