A Hero * * * *

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi shot to fame amongst us Westerners ten years ago with A Separation.  Since then he has given us The Salesman and Everybody Knows (shot in Spain), both of which are fine films.

A Hero is a good film too, though not as strong or as engaging as Everybody Knows, but like The Salesman, it gives good insight into Iranian Society, some of which is admirable (care and generosity is everywhere) and some of which is weird and disturbing. For instance the premise of this story is based on .... get this.... Debtors Prison!  Yes, they still have debtors prison in Iran - and its your creditor, not the Courts, who determines whether you can be released.

Where can I find 150 Million Tomans?

The system is not as self defeating as it sounds.  The inmates get paid to do useful things, and then they are released once in a while, to earn more money or to hustle and beg friends and family to help them, or devise some scheme to pay off their debt.

I thought A Hero was a bit untidy in the beginning.  It has a lot of expository dialogue explaining who is living with who and why; but as it progresses it begins to make sense and actually becomes intriguing and Hitchcockian. 

Rahim is on his two day furlough from debtors prison when he comes across a lost handbag full of gold coins.  "Allah be Praised!", he says, "This should settle the matter".  But his gain will be someone else's loss, so being a good lad he hands it in.  The media find out and Rahin soon enjoys the fame and praise for being honest in the face of overwhelming temptation.

But there is something fishy about all this, for he has to make some admissions about who actually found it, how it came into his possession and what motivated him to hand it in. 

Meanwhile, his conflict with his creditor continues and we hear his side of the story, which doesn't exactly increase our sympathy for our Hero.  But then we look at Rahim's situation again: His marriage busted up, his separation from his young son who is now withdrawn and stuttering, and the impossible amount of money he owes his inflexible creditor.

As in his other films, the quality that shines more than anything else is the immediacy. Farhadi is brilliant at it. I don't know how he does it - lighting, framing - but he seems to strip away the gloss of cinema. It's so real at times you actually feel you could step into the screen or talk back to the characters.