In ‘A Hero,’ just being in Iran is most of the problem
Whether he is working in Europe or in his native Iran, Asghar Farhadi’s films often deal with emotional anguish. But in his Iranian films there is always an added hardship, which is living in Iran itself.
In “The Separation,” “Salesman” and now “A Hero,” in theaters Friday, Jan. 7, we see men and women having normal relationships and interactions within their homes. But as soon as they come into contact with the outside world, particularly with any form of authority or bureaucracy, they find themselves navigating laws and customs that, at least from a Western perspective, seem straight out of the 18th century.
In the case of “A Hero,” we meet a man named Rahim on a twoday pass from debtors’ prison (yes, there is still such a thing in 2022). He’s hoping to have his debt restructured so he can go back to work, pay back the money and marry his girlfriend. In the meantime, he has to keep secret his relationship with the girlfriend, because her brother wouldn’t like it, and her brother is the boss of her life. Like Rahim, she is in her late 30s.
If you see “A Hero” — and I’m not telling you to see it or not see it; it’s truly right down the middle for this one — notice how every single difficulty this man encounters derives from his living in a severe patriarchal society. The secrecy of his relationship with his girlfriend becomes foundational to his troubles. Another woman’s secret from her husband is the source of a whole other set of difficulties. Our hero (Amir Jadidi) is hemmed in, with next to no room to maneuver.
Perhaps this should be interesting. Certainly, others have found it interesting — “A Hero” won the Grand Prix, the second-highest award, at the Cannes Film Festival. But Farhadi’s other Iranian films, at least the ones widely released in the United States, have dealt mainly with emotional and family life and only tangentially with the state and the culture. “A Hero” takes place mainly outside the family, within Iranian public life, and it’s a frustrating watch because everything bad that happens doesn’t need to happen.
The experience is akin to watching a movie about someone dying of a minor infection because no one in the house knows that antibiotics have been invented. It’s one thing to witness misfortune, but a slowmotion depiction of unnecessary misfortune distracts us from tragedy and inadvertently focuses us on the ridiculous waste of it all.
Rahim is basically a nice guy, but he is weak, partly because of his situation, though partly because of his character. Early in the film, he is tempted to do something wrong, but he doesn’t do it. He does something unusually virtuous instead, and this becomes known to the public. Suddenly, his 15 minutes of fame beckon, but to seize the fame — and all the advantages sure to follow — he has to tell what seems like a very minor lie.
The best aspect of “A Hero,” and probably the aspect which Farhadi would most like us to contemplate, is the internal journey of Rahim, who, over the course of his difficulties, slowly and belatedly seems to come into his manhood.
In the beginning of the movie, his most familiar expression is an obsequious smile. He loses it as he gradually becomes the thing he’s been pretending to be: a hero.
That’s something, but from an audience’s perspective, that’s a small dividend for an investment of more than two hours. To arrive there, you must first endure listening to a series of know-it-all authority figures — most of them men — prattling and berating and speaking with all the confident self-satisfaction of ignorance.