This would have made a terrific courtroom drama, with its story emerging via lengthy flashbacks.
Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s newest film is a thoughtful, increasingly puzzling character study: a twisty saga fueled by strong, relatable performances.
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| Rahim (Amir Jadidi, right) and his son Saivash (Saleh Karimai) do their best to find the grateful woman whose property was restored, to no avail. |
As I mentioned, in my review of Farhadi’s excellent 2011 film, A Separation, his characters (and we viewers) base their opinions, feelings and loyalties on what they’ve been told, and what they believe they know.
A Separation took that year’s Oscar for Best International Film, and Farhadi also garnered a well-earned writing nomination. A Hero took the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the exalted Palme d’Or; it’s easy to see why the judges were transfixed by this equally twisty story.
The setting is modern-day Shiraz. Events begin as Rahim (Amir Jadidi), in prison due to a debt he’s unable to repay, obtains a two-day leave in order to visit his family: sister Mali (Maryam Shahdaei) and brother-in-law Hossein (Alireza Jahandideh). They’ve been caring for Rahim’s son — Saivash (Saleh Karimai), a painfully shy boy with a severe stutter — following an unpleasant divorce.
On his way home, Rahim finds a purse with a broken strap; it contains 17 gold coins. Initially believing it a means of settling at least part of his debt to Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), Rahim has second thoughts and — instead — puts up fliers, in an effort to reunite the purse with its actual owner. A young woman responds, accurately describes the purse and its varied contents, and is tearfully grateful when she gets it back intact.
Word of this good deed gets out; the usury prison officials — who’ve long regarded Rahim a model inmate, and also smell an opportunity for positive publicity — arrange for a television interview. The story of Rahim’s noble act, when so many others would have kept the coins for their own purposes, makes him a popular social media hero.
The soft-spoken Jadidi — rarely without his humble, deferential smile — blossoms like a spring flower, during the subsequent tsunami of respect: a man ignored for so long, often treated with contempt, suddenly lionized. He can’t begin to comprehend this new feeling.
A local charity organization embraces Rahim, granting him a “certificate of merit” and organizing a fund-raiser in order to help settle his prison debt. But that modest sum isn’t even close to the 150,000 tomans that Rahim owes Bahram.
Worse yet, Bahram — played by Tanabandeh as a bitter, unforgiving miser in the mold of Lionel Barrymore’s Mr. Potter, in 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life — has no interest in joining the congratulatory brigade, having spitefully kept Rahim imprisoned for years, despite numerous good-faith efforts to settle the debt in installments.
But then … things start to unravel.
A local government official, seeking to confirm the story, insists on meeting the purse’s owner; Rahim can’t produce her. The reason is plausible enough; Jadidi’s earnest face reflects genuine puzzlement. In an effort to bolster this part of his story, Ramin involves his new love, Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust), whom he hopes to marry once the debt is settled, and he’s able to resume work.
They concoct what seems a well-intentioned white lie, the results of which merely dig the hole even deeper.
(On a quick side note, Goldust’s performance as a strong, independent woman who speaks her mind, even standing up to her male family members, is an eye-opening revelation.)
At this point, we begin to wonder. What initially seemed an increasingly tragic case of “No good deed goes unpunished,” begins to feel more like a crafty and carefully calculated scheme. (As a prison official eventually says to Rahim, at a telling moment, “You’re either very smart … or very simple.”)
And when the supposed villain of this piece begins to look sympathetic, we realize that Farhadi has been playing us, and quite deviously.
Although key details play out for our eyes — as when the grateful purse owner is reunited with her property, and gives young Saivash a 50-toman note — we suddenly realize that our knowledge of how the purse was found is based solely on what Rahim told everybody.
Nor is Bahram merely a creditor; he’s Rahim’s former brother-in-law, as his sister was Rahim’s first wife. Which clearly heightens the emotional mine field on both sides.
We’re drawn, as well, to the fact that — each time he’s faced with an uncomfortable question or accusation — Rahim begins his response with “The truth is…” (a sly little detail by Farhadi). And although it initially seems that Rahim’s insistence that Saivash always be at his side, is the reasonable behavior of a newly released father wanting to spend every precious second with his son, a faint whiff of exploitation creeps into the equation. The boy’s stutter always prompts an outpouring of sympathy.
On the other hand, if Rahim is truly an unsophisticated victim, can we blame him for the increasingly desperate efforts intended to reaffirm his credibility?
Farhadi is relentless, and maddeningly ambiguous; viewers will argue long and loud, following the film’s final somber scene.
All this said, the drama — tantalizing as it is — emerges with at times painful slowness. Farhadi is fond of long, wordless tracking shots of his characters walking along streets, or — as the film begins — slowly climbing the impossibly high scaffolding alongside the towering cliff face that contains the royal tombs of Persepolis. The sheer ordinariness of such sequences becomes tedious.
Alfred Hitchcock, describing his filmmaking technique, famously said that “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” Farhadi leaves too many of the dull bits in, which does his film no favors.
1 comment:
What an incredible thoughtful review, with all its twists and turns and insights into human complexity. Now I'm going to have to see this movie. Thank you!
- Amy Mogavero
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