Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Asghar Farhadi
Starring: Amir Jadidi, Mohsen Tanabandeh, Alireza Jahandideh, Sahar Goldoost, Sarina Farhadi
Dozens of movies have revolved around the premise of a protagonist
landing in trouble after finding a bag of money and deciding to keep it
for themselves. The celebrated Iranian auteur
Asghar Farhadi gives us a novel twist on this notion with
A Hero. Here, our protagonist, Rahim (Amir Jadidi), finds himself in
hot water not because he holds onto a bag of money but because he does
the right thing and attempts to return it to its rightful owner.
At the start of the movie Rahim is in a debtor's prison (In Iran, if
you owe somebody money and can't pay them back, they can decide to have
you incarcerated until you come up with the funds). Let out for two
days' leave, Rahim unites with his lover, Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust), who may have stumbled across a way of gaining Rahim's freedom. A
week earlier she found a handbag at a bus stop. Inside the bag were 17
gold coins. Using his avuncular brother-in-law Hossein (Ali Reza Jahandideh) as a go-between, Rahim attempts to convince his creditor, Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), to accept the value of the coins as a down-payment in exchange for
his freedom. Rahim argues that once released, he will take a job and pay
off the remainder of the debt in instalments.
When Rahim and Farkhondeh have the coins appraised, they find their
value is far below what they had estimated. Figuring he's headed back to
jail anyway, Rahim decides to return the coins to their owner, placing
flyers around town with the phone number of the prison. A woman, Nazanin
(Sarina Farhadi, daughter of the director), contacts the prison,
and as she seems to know the exact details of the handbag's contents,
Rahim puts her in touch with his sister Malileh (Maryam Shahdaie), who returns the bag and its coins. Seizing an opportunity for good
publicity, the prison authorities contact the media and alert them to
their inmate's good deed. Rahim finds himself praised as a hero and is
taken under the wing of an advocacy group who raise money to settle his
debt and arrange for him to take a job with the council.
Just when it seems all is going well for Rahim, we're reminded that
this is an Asghar Farhadi movie. In order to take his job at the
council, Rahim is asked to provide proof that the coins were returned to
their owner. When Rahim attempts to track Nazanin down, he discovers
that she left no trail, having made phone calls from shops and borrowing
her taxi driver's phone. As further cracks appear in Rahim's story, his
creditor becomes increasingly belligerent, unhappy with how he's been
portrayed as the villain of the piece.
Much of A Hero's narrative follows a similar structure to Vittorio De Sica's
Bicycle Thieves as the bedraggled Rahim races around
Tehran in search of Nazanin. Like the put-upon hero of De Sica's film,
Rahim is often accompanied by his son, Siavash (Saleh Karimai).
In a pivotal moment, Rahim refuses to allow his son to be exploited in a
video made by one of the prison authorities who argues that Siavesh's
speech impediment will gain Rahim some much needed sympathy. Farhadi
makes a worthy argument against the patronising portrayal of
disabilities in many films, but he's guilty of such a thing himself.
Just like the prison official, Farhadi uses Siavesh's impediment to gain
the viewer's sympathy. Siavesh has no real characteristics other than
his disability and the use of the boy is a jarringly manipulative
misstep in a movie that otherwise refuses to wallow in
sentimentality.
Far more ambiguous is Farhadi's portrayal of Rahim. Keeping his cards
close to his chest, Rahim may well be pulling the wool over both his
supporters and the viewer. His true motives for returning the coins are
never made explicit, so we're left to wonder if it's a genuinely good
deed or a calculated ploy to make himself look heroic. As the narrative
progresses we're fed hints that Rahim may well be his own worst enemy,
that he's dug a hole in which to bury himself. Switching between a
hangdog expression and a shit-eating grin, Jadidi is perfectly cast as
Rahim. He wins us over with his charisma and winning smile, but is his
charm a little too deliberate? By the end of the movie we're still not
sure what to make of Rahim. Has he taken us all for a ride or is he
genuinely a victim of bad faith? Ultimately, does it matter when posed
against the broader question of whether a man should be imprisoned for
simply owing money?
