Film Review - A Hero
Images courtesy of Hi Gloss Entertainment.
Acclaimed director Asghar Farhadi’s latest film A Hero proffers a complex moral parable that provokes deep thought about individual actions.
Since its release, the film has ridden a veritable rollercoaster of publicity, from winning the Grand Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 2021, to the filmmaker being sued for plagiarism by a former student.
Farhadi follows in the same vein of his previous films, whereby a character is compromised by their internal and external circumstances, and their reactions ripple out with unintended consequences.
A Hero follows Raheem who is released for two days from a debtor’s prison to repay an outstanding debt to his brother-in-law Bahram. His secret lover Farkondeh finds a purse full of gold coins at a bus stop and offers it to Raheem for half of the debt, however, they realise the gold coins are not worth as much as they thought. Consequently, Raheem conscientiously attempts to return the purse to its original owner.
Once this information becomes public, Raheem garners media attention and is hailed, as the title suggests, a hero. In response, a local charity for the destitute supports Raheem and procures money on his behalf, as well securing him a government job . However, Bahram throws doubt onto his story, prompting an intelligence officer working for the charity to fact-check his story, leading to unsettling narrative reveals.
Farhadi drip feeds morsels of information about the characters of the film to raise questions of whether an action can ever really be selfless if it serves a selfish purpose, or if indicted criminals can ever redeem themselves. As the screws of the story wrench tighter, Farhadi’s camera encloses in on the characters with claustrophobic effect. In one example, Raheem loses his temper at Bahram for possibly leaking information to the press, attacking him at his corner shop with bystanders watching. As it spills out onto the street, the audience too feels almost betrayed by the fact that their protagonist is digging himself a deeper hole of regret.
Farhadi’s previous films prominently feature what would be described in scriptwriting as an ‘inciting incident’ mid-film, where he places his camera on the periphery of the action, but not showing the audience exactly what is happening. In this case, the film is dense with conversations and interactions to reveal its minor details, rather than visual cues that deny the viewer of deeper engagement.
Much of the plot, though, is glued together by a remarkably memorable performance from Amir Jadidi as Raheem. A pivotal moment that consigns Raheem to a jail of regret is when he exploits his 11-year-old son's stutter by presenting him in front of the media to procure sympathy. However, this leads to greater scrutiny of his family, resulting in physical altercations with the people he is closest to, tearing apart any support he once had. Jadidi plays these moments masterfully with a clenched jaw but disarming smile, portraying a multitude of conflicting emotions. An acquiescent man who seems to have accepted the circumstances around him, the events of the film are essentially the apex of his life where he tries to take control and change his life’s path. However, the more he tries, the worse it gets, and the Sisyphean task proves to doom him to a societal purgatory.
A far more ambiguous narrative structure than his previous films, the film remains deeply layered in fascinating story arcs to comment more broadly on society’s ills.
A Hero is screening in cinemas nationwide from Thursday the 9th of June. For tickets and more info, click here.