‘A Hero’ Review: Farhadi Delivers Again
Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi has made another movie and, as is to be expected at this point, has another major awards contender on his hands. His latest, A Hero, is subtle yet galvanizing and thoroughly devastating, an engaging social drama that is riddled with twists and turns and delivers a scathing look at the state of Iran.
The story follows Rahim, a man who is in prison due to his debts (an idea alien to most Americans but commonplace in certain parts of the world), who gets a few days of leave to go out into the world and visit his loved ones. His secret girlfriend finds a bag of gold coins, which he considers using to pay off his debt, however he eventually decides to find the owner and return them. This good deed is seized upon by the media and the prison management who turn Rahim into an overnight sensation due to his good deed. However rumors start to spread that Rahim’s deed is a story invested by the prison and the media, rumors that become enflamed by Rahim’s creditor, who also happens to be his ex-father-in-law, and Rahim must prove what he did actually happened all the while being doubted by the whole world.
A Hero is well photographed and directed, taking a relatively un-stylized approach to its material while still managing to charge its images with symbolic meaning. The performances are also excellent across the board, with Amir Jadidi coming away as the show stealer as Rahim. It starts a bit slow, but quickly turns into an emotional roller-coaster ride as Rahim continues to have obstacle after obstacle piled in his way and is forced to reckon with a world that would rather see him fail than believe that good can exist. Watching the film can be a frustrating experience because we are made to empathize with Rahim’s continually mounting frustration with the world around him, and when his temper reaches a fever pitch, he has already held out on his rage longer than most of the audience would.
Iran in A Hero is not unlike the prison that Rahim is trapped in. The prison wardens are capricious and self-serving, equally concerned with flexing their authority while trying to maintain a good public image, much like the mullahs leading the country. In fact image is one of the central themes of the film and in Iranian society. Everyone is less concerned with the truth a more about how they appear to others and the quality of their reputation. Small transgressions and guilt by association are seized upon as reasons to denounce people, and create a pervading atmosphere of paranoia that turns everyone in it into self-serving misanthropes. Those who don’t care how they appear, who do good or bad for their own sake, like Rahim, his girlfriend, and a taxi driver who helps our hero on occasion, are seen as strange and alien by the rest of society. In A Hero, pure motives and pure actions are inscrutable to a corrupt society. Everyone else, Rahim’s family, the prison authorities, the media, his creditor, his ex-wife, and even a local charity are all concerned first and foremost with their image and their reputation, as those things are more valuable than truth or even money in the prevailing culture. In totally, it is a trap, a prison with socially enforced walls and bars. Farhadi’s sharp writing and direction frame these ideas in the particulars of Iranian society, but in their specificity is a sort of universality, making them applicable and relatable to anyone and everyone regardless of their cultural background. Even in America, who hasn’t faced or witnessed some dilemma similar to Rahim, and been held back by a culture ruled by cynicism.
A Hero is one of the best films of 2021 and another hit for Asghar Farhadi. I cannot recommend it highly enough, especially since it is free to watch if you have Amazon Prime, which nearly everyone does at this point. It’s the ultimate feel-bad movie, a film that will leave you sad and angry, but in its beauty gives one a glimpse of a better way forward.
