CONFLICT ZONE

Between the lines of a pivotal moment in Asghar Farhadi's A Hero

DAVID CANFIELD

VANITIES / Anatomy of a Scene

EROISM is A complicated concept in Asghar Farhadi's A Hero. The Oscar-nominated Iranian filmmaker's latest tells the story of Rahim (Amir Jadidi), a struggling divorce vaulted to unearned local-celebrity status. He owes a legally binding debt to his former brother-inlaw, Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), and his girlfriend comes across a bag of gold coins that would help free him of it. Instead, Rahim devises a story of returning the money to its rightful owner—and generates goodwill publicity for himself.

At first, Rahim is A Hero's heart, a father trying to do right by his son—"a very simple man in a very complicated situation," Farhadi says. Over time, Farhadi twists the narrative not in plot but character development—resulting in this brutally effective scene, where Rahim confronts Bahram. By this point, the community's glowing perception of Rahim has shifted toward suspicion. Bahram has presented his side of the story, explaining why he's held the debt over Rahim's head for so long, "if you work against the traditional version of tragedy, which is good versus bad, and make it good versus good, it changes everything about the movie," Farhadi says. " I wanted this to completely cause chaos—the audience to move to Bahram's side."

The scene ends in a fistfight between the two men, a clash rooted in sadness. Farhadi's main goal was to make it feel incredibly realistic, and he gave his actors one big note: "Fight. But in your heart, feel like you don't want to fight."

STAR OF THE SYSTEM

In Iran, going on TV news often means you "belong to the system," Farhadi says-inadvertently helping boost government propaganda to serve your own cause: "You won't get the same meaning out of this line as any Iranian who sees this film."

WE HAVE DOUBT

"Everything is impacted by doubt in this film. I sometimes ask myself why people don't trust such a nice, simple guy. And then I come to the answer: The atmosphere is so full of misunderstanding that nobody can trust anyone."

WHAT'S IN A TITLE

"It goes back to an exchange from the Brecht play Galileo: 'Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero!' 'No…unhappy is the land that needs a hero'…. The concept of this film comes from this sentence."

FATHER FIGURE

"Whenever Rahim gets humiliated, he tries to leave the me scene. scene. But But he he fights fights for for his child. That humiliation that he's gone through in his life—he doesn't want his child to go through the same thing."

RESTORINGRALANCE

"Bahram lets Rahim go, which emotionally creates balance in the heart of the audience. We have to empathize with all the characters in this film. I don't just mean that we have to understand their reasoning. We have to emotionally be with them, to like them."