A Hero

In cinema, there is usually a clear division between the bad guys and the good guys. The viewer identifies with the former, and dislikes the latter. This is easy for the audience and for the film maker.

But Asghar Farhadi is known for not taking the easy way. In 'A Hero', the good guy can turn out to be bad after all, and vice versa. Or, more accurately, the division between good and bad is blurred. Everyone has good intentions, but sometimes they come out bad.

This is why Farhadi is one of the greatest contemporary film makers. His films deal with moral issues, just as people in the real world do. His characters are complex, like we alle are. There are no easy solutions to the problems, just as in real life.

'A Hero' tells the story of an ordinary man who gets involved in a situation he no longer controls. He is perceived as a hero because he returned a bag with valuables to its owner, but when his story is doubted, fate turns against him. The situation becomes complex, more and more people get involved and there is gradually more at stake as the story unfolds.

The screenplay of this film is perfect. Every details has a meaning somewhere in the story. Things are not spelled out, but nothing is left vague. The beauty is also that this is a circular story, with an end that is the opposite of the beginning. The very last scene is wonderful in its simplicity and understated meaning.

With this film, Farhadi shows us also what life is like in modern Iran. It's not a political film and the story is rather universal, but several elements can be perceived as critical for Iranian society. The 'hero' is jailed for an unpaid debt, which is something we don't do in western countries. He has to keep his relationship with his girlfriend a secret, because they are not married yet. Another character had to spend his daughter's dowry, and we see her as an unmarried woman, living with her father.

For me 'A Hero' is one of the best films I've seen this year and also one of the best films Farhadi has made. A perfectly told story, which keeps on offering new elements to evaluate reality - that is what film making should be all about.

After a rare unexpected misfire with his last feature, the Oscar-winning Persian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi returns with a vengeance to prove why he is one of contemporary cinema's finest storytellers and delivers what's arguably his best work since A Separation. Jam-packed with all the attributes that make his stories so restlessly riveting, A Hero is another laser-focused & razor-sharp drama that unravels with cut-throat intensity.

Written & directed by Farhadi (About Elly & The Salesman), the premise is deceptively simple as expected and yet again, using mere truth & lies, the director weaves a tightly structured & intricately layered narrative that keeps us on the edge at all times. His unfailing ability to take a seemingly straightforward situation and then effortlessly turn it into a complex, challenging & nerve-wracking moral conundrum is one trait that never fails to impress.

What makes Farhadi's latest film so gripping & effective is that we as viewers can relate to what the protagonist is trying to do but we also see him unnecessarily dragging himself into a predicament that becomes increasingly difficult to escape from with every decision he makes and yet, all we can do is be a spectator to his undoing. Amir Jadidi's performance is crucial to this web of truth, lies, morality, deceit, honour, conscience & consequence and he plays his role to perfection.

Overall, A Hero is an ingeniously crafted & tautly narrated drama that unfolds with the unrelenting ferocity, nail-biting tension & edge-of-the-seat quality of a first-rate thriller and is accomplished enough on all fronts to cement its spot amongst the best all-round films of 2021. Presenting the Persian auteur at the apex of his craft while also establishing him as a luminary who's operating on a whole another level and is far ahead of his contemporaries, A Hero is top-tier cinema & a flat-out masterpiece.

Greetings again from the darkness. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." That line from a Sir Walter Raleigh poem hit me early, and stuck with me through this latest superb film from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi. Having won me over a decade ago with A SEPARATION (2011), and again 5 years ago with THE SALESMAN (2016), Farhadi excels at pushing our buttons on the complexities of human nature.

Rahim (Amir Jadidi) receives a two day leave from debtor's prison, and has reason for optimism. He has a legitimate plan to make good on his debt and gain his release. A taxi drops him at the tomb of Xerxes where his sister's brother Hossein (Alireza Jahandideh) is working on the preservation. Rahim, a low-key guy with an easy smile, asks Hossein for help in brokering a deal with Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), the man who paid off the loan shark on Rahim's behalf, and filed the complaint that sent him to jail.

The divorced Rahim meets up with his secret lover, Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust), to cash out the 17 gold coins she recently found. Unfortunately, the exchange rate is less than expected, and worse than that for Rahim, Bahram refuses to accept the partial payment in conjunction with a promissory note. This leads to the aforementioned 'tangled web' and allows filmmaker Farhadi to do what he does best ... cause us to question everything.

The web involves Rahim, Bahram, the jailer, and a local charity that gets involved for what is initially termed the actions of 'a hero'. But that's just the tip of who gets dragged in, and that includes Rahim's son, who has a significant speech impediment. So what happens? Well, without giving anything away, we learn there's a fine line between a lie and the truth, and between a heroic act and manipulation. In fact, Farhadi has us questioning what it means to be a hero. What impact does media attention have? Is it heroic to do the right thing? What if that thing also helps you? What role do the reasons for your actions play?

Rahim faces a steady stream of moral forks in the road. Which path to take at any given time has ramifications on him, his situation, and countless others. As the fibs pile up, soon others are lying to help you or telling stories to hurt you. There is so much grey area here, we can't be certain whether black and white even exists. Farhadi's film seems like a simple story about a simple man, but neither the story nor the man are simple. It's not about the money, but the money reveals character. Reputation and integrity are on the line. We may first root for Rahim and jeer Bahram, but upon reflection, we likely shift our support. This is Iran's submission to the Academy, and it's a good one.

In theaters January 7, 2022 and streaming on Amazon Prime January 21, 2021.

"A Hero" (2021 release from Iran; 127 min.) brings the story of Rahmir. As the movie opens, we are introduced to Rahmir, who is on a two day release from jail, resulting from a loan he wasn't able to repay to his creditor, who is owed 150 million tomans (about $3,500). Much to his surprise, Rahmir's girlfriend has found a lady's purse that contains 17 gold coins which would go a long way to pay back the loan. But Rahmir's conscience tells him to instead return the gold coins to its rightful owner. It sets into motion a series of events that no-one could've foreseen...

Couple of comments: this is the latest from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi, who has won Oscars for both 2011's "A Separation" and 2016's "The Salesman". Here once again Farhadi takes a look at a slice of life, where thing don't evolve as expected. On its face, the movie, very much like Farhadi's prior films, is deceitfully simple but in fact it examine many different aspects: a divorced man with a young son who stutters; the accumulative effects of so-called white lies; the peer pressure to conform in a conservative society. In the end, "A Hero" is another complex, nuanced morality play from Asghar Farhadi that, like an onion, reveals more with each layer as the movie goes by. The no-names cast is fantastic from start to finish. Filmed in the city of Shiraz (in southwest Iran), the film also offers a glimpse of what daily life in Iran looks like today (guess what: they are people just like us, many struggling to simply make ends meet).

"A Hero" premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival to immediate critical acclaim (and winning one of the festival's major prizes). After a limited US theatrical release, the movie moved to Amazon Prime this weekend, where I caught it. If you are in the mood for another top-notch foreign morality play that is is as universal as it is spellbinding, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it on Amazon Prime, Amazon Instant Video, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

Another fascinating and morally complex character study from Asghar Farhadi.

As with his previous movies "A Separation" and "The Salesman," Farhadi presents us with an ambiguous situation and then sits back and observes what happens as a varied cast of characters try to navigate it. There are no good guys or bad guys, and there's no clear right or wrong. Some people do good things for the wrong reasons. Some people do bad, or at least hurtful, things for a good reason. Many characters fall into both categories. I love Farhadi's films because they don't editorialize and they acknowledge that the world we live in is messy and complicated and that nothing, not ideas or people or beliefs, can fall into the tidy buckets that our social media world wants them to.

Grade: A.