A Hero review: Iranian director Asghar Farhadi delivers a simple but powerful film

Asghar Farhadi's 'A Hero' makes a statement about society and its hollowness. (Image: Screen grab)

‘Honest auto rickshaw driver returns bag of money to traveller’

‘Good samaritan refuses reward, wins hearts.’

You have read many such stories in the city pages of newspapers and forgotten about them. But what happens to these good samaritans?

When filmmaker Asghar Farhadi reads a story like this, he knows this will make great cinema about people and society as a whole. A Hero is proof of what a master storyteller can do with a simple idea.

A painter, a calligrapher, out on a two-day parole from prison finds a bag of gold coins and makes an attempt to find the owner. This turns him into a local celebrity and pleases many interested parties. But it annoys his creditor who has sent him to prison in the first place. Is it his creditor trying to pull him down by posting rumours on social media? What will this simpleton do?

The film released in the theaters this week, and I hope you will book the tickets because Iranian films tell stories that could be remade in India. The first thing you think when you watch Iranian films is how people thousands of miles away are so similar to us. It’s not just how they eat food together, that ever-present cup of tea, as also how someone will always bring a tray of tea whenever the situation gets challenging or even when people are celebrating! Even the characters: aunts who gossip, fathers who are stern, food being shared with neighbours… So much more is so relatable to us. And yet, I ask, why do their films earn so many more Oscars than ours do?

Watch A Separation (2011, directed by Asghar Farhadi) on Amazon Prime Video. Filial responsibility vs marital bliss is a hard choice to make. And when things get complicated, you wish that a modern country would try and create laws that are not so inflexible… Farhadi instils so much empathy in each character, that the film resonates with you even though you may not be in that same situation.

The Salesman is a delightful play within a movie that draws multiple parallels between real life and theatre. The mad need for the husband to find the man who entered his new home, the wife’s need to hide her mistake and the consequent embarrassment should they report it to the police, the husband’s inadequacies as a teacher, actor… This film is just an incredible watch. We're hoping that it shows up on MUBI soon.

The movie that stunned me though is Farhadi’s Fireworks Wednesday. Can a well off couple going through a period of marital strife that is going to lead to a divorce, pull in a maid into their narrative?

Abbas Kiarostami is another master teller of beautiful stories. If you are a fan of Juliette Binoche, then you must have watched Certified Copy, which the Iranian master shot in Paris. What looks like a simple autograph hunting exercise, isn’t. The beautiful Juliette Binoche has never looked so vulnerable before!

I am a huge fan of another Iranian director Jafar Panahi. You don’t have to take my word for it, watch his films on MUBI. When he was put under house arrest because making movies was considered to be against the state religion, he made a movie with his phone and it is said that the USB stick was smuggled out in a cake and it reached Cannes for the film festival. See what sharing food with neighbours can do?

His Tehran Taxi is also a film made with the help of the camera inside a - you guessed it - a taxi! With passengers commenting on how life has changed for a filmmaker (that he has to drive a cab now!) to others blissfully unaware that they’re being driven around Tehran by a storyteller… But Panahi’s film called Closed Curtains shows us what a writer-director of movies goes through when forced to literally draw curtains on his life because of the political situation in a country…

Have I digressed much? Only to show that stories and storytellers will find a way to share their vision with the world and make rebellious statements in cinema by treading a thin line. And yes, the world appreciates these films as much as you and I love the Berry pulao (Zereshk Polo) and kebabs…

Amir Jadidi as Rahim in 'A Hero', directed by Asghar Farhadi. (Screen grab)

The moment Asghar Farhadi announced his film A Hero, it stepped into a controversy: his student (Azadeh Masihzadeh) claimed that he had stolen the idea from her documentary assignment. Farhadi lost the case and his defamation countersuit and his student has been cleared.

The film A Hero makes a statement about society and its hollowness by showing how facile charities are, and how they care more for ‘what will people say’ rather than really helping someone. How institutions can be emotionally blackmailed into doing the right thing as long as their image is preserved… When the ‘good samaritan’ (is he truly that or just a fraud?) makes his choice, you can’t help but think of the song ‘My Own Prison’ by Creed.

The last shot of the film is so memorable, you realise that there is no place for a ‘hero’ outside in the bright world of free men, a world full of manipulative social media posts. That there could be relief when the prison guard says, ‘Come on in.’

A court in Iran has found Asghar Farhadi guilty of plagiarising his student's documentary, 'All Winners, All Losers'. This information is disappointing, but does not change the reviewer's opinion about the film.