Movie Review — A Hero — Asghar Farhadi
Another gem of a movie by Asghar Farhadi — The famed Iranian director.
Like most of his movies — this one also is set in Iran. (The only exception is Everybody knows! which is set in Spain). Like most of his movies it is true to the local milieu while the struggle of the characters are always the human conditions everywhere.
Rahim — the central character in ‘A hero’ is in jail as he is unable to pay his personal debts. The story starts when he comes out of join for a few days on a parole, with the hope of convincing his creditor to withdraw the case against him by promising to return some of the debt back.
The story is unfolded slowly and we get to see the details only at the pace the masterful craftsman reveals it frame by frame. From the jail, he goes directly to visit his sister and family who welcomes him on the parole. It is his young niece that lovingly jumps into his arms. Later we realize that he has a young son who lives at the same household, yet distant from Rahim. It is very much later the fact that Rahim has an estranged wife is revealed. She is never shown in the movie. Development of such characters is the hallmark of a great director, and is done deftly as in his previous movies.
The struggle of common man to escape the weight of debt and his journey of helplessness is depicted effectively. Circumstances conspire to keep people in their wretched situations. Social mobility is almost unthinkable in certain societies, and even a great gesture of returning a bag full of money to the rightful owner cannot redeem a once condemned poor person. It is not really a rich vs poor class struggle. In harsh societies it is often the people in the same struggles who conspire and act as a custodian to keep the people pegged in their sorry situations further. In that sense, there is no isms or grand battles or social class struggles.
The beauty of the movie is portraying the struggle of a man in all its reality with characters that are so real that you can feel them in your veins, and the cinematic devices of hope and chance and redemption dangled in front, but eventually everything must succumb to the harsh rules of the society that grips the powerless in its place — no escape. It just will not accept a hero of the audience’s choosing. The society and the setting and the cultural rules and mistrust will rule once again. That is the dose of reality.
