A Hero

Written by Joe D on January 23rd, 2022

 

                                             Asghar Farhadi

I just watched A Hero by the great Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi. An excellent film, the story of a man who tries to do the right thing and is of course punished by Society. I have seen almost all of his films, they are all great, wonderfully written, acted and directed. Moral puzzles, all worth watching. I was lucky enough to see him speak at a screening of The Salesman, a truly great film, that posed some very complicated questions and did not give you the answers. Something I like in a film. Farhadi himself said he did not know the answer to these questions, he had a feeling what had happened but he the filmmaker did not know for sure. Amazing! He left it up to the audience to decide! On the way down to the parking garage, a man in the elevator expressed his view vehemently! “He definitely raped her!” He proclaimed. This is great Cinema, it has the power to create dialogs that last long after the film has been projected. Filmmaking through time. Also, we are at odds with Iran, our governments are almost at war, yet Cinema has the power to show the humanity of the people living in the Forbidden Country, what a great gift.

A Hero is also in my opinion a homage to the great Luis Bunuel Film, Nazarin. A film where a simple country priest(in Mexico) tries to live according to the true teachings of Christ. And of course is spurned and eventually arrested. In A Hero the daughter of the Creditor that our hero owes money to is named Nazarin, also at the end of Bunuel’s film, a peasant woman taking pity on Nazarin, who she assumes is a criminal because he’s being led to jail in chains, gives him a pineapple. At the end of A Hero, he gets a box of baklava.

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