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1. A Hero (review)
Babak Mazloumi
Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies, Volume 7, Number 1, May 2022,
pp. 107-112 (Article)
Published by Indiana University Press
For additional information about this article
[ Access provided at 17 Dec 2022 21:08 GMT from University of California @ Irvine ]
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/872566

2. Film Reviews
A Hero
Movie Drama, Starring Amir Jadidi, Mohsen Tanabandeh,
Alireza Jahandideh, and Sahar Goldoust, 2021, 121 Minutes,
Directed by Asghar Farhadi Produced by Asghar Farhadi and
Alexandre Mallet-Guy
Asghar Farhadi’s movie, A Hero (Persian: Qahraman) was first screened at
the Cannes film festival in 2021 where it won Grand Prix.1
It debuted in Iran
in November 2021. This was concurrent with a significant reduction in the
number of people infected with the COVID-19 virus in Iran and other parts
of the world which caused a new hope for the revival of cinema. The relatively
good statistic, however, did not comport with the high hopes.2
There was also
a controversy which further reduced the number of viewers: One of Farhadi’s
students pressed charges against him accusing him of plagiarizing; she stated
that Farhadi’s movie script copied the story that she wrote for the class that he
taught. Farhadi, however, vehemently denied all such charges.3
The movie starts with the protagonist, Rahim Soltani (starring Amir
Jadidi), leaving prison. He is on a two-day leave to find a way to pay his
debt or persuade his creditor, Bahram (starring Mohsen Tanabandeh), to
withdraw his complaint or Rahim will continue to serve time. As he is leaving
the prison, one can see the Persian translation of a verse from the Qur’an on
the prison wall that reads, “if you have been thankful for your past, God will
increase your sustenance, but if you have been ungrateful, God will decrease your
sustenance.” This is symbolic and a foreshadowing of what is yet to come
within the context of the storyline.

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In the next scene, one can see Rahim at an archeological site where workers
are not only excavating ancient monuments and artifacts, but also preserving
them for future references. It is at this site that Rahim asks his brother-in-law,
Hosein (starring Alireza Jahandideh), who works there to help him settle the
debt that landed him in jail. He hopes they can go together to the creditor to
convince him to withdraw the complaint. Regarding the debt, Rahim claims
he has a portion of the funds, without revealing his source. He, then, meets
Farkhondeh, a young woman (starring Sahar Goldoust) with whom he turns
out to have been romantically involved. The woman appears to be in possession
of something precious that might come to Rahim’s aid. It is learned later in the
film that this precious possession turns out to be 17 gold coins, the partial funds
that Rahim had spoken about to Hosein. They had planned to sell the gold coins
as partial payment towards the debt with hopes of creating a payment plan for
the balance. When Farkhondeh suggested that the gold coins could portend a
miracle, Rahim had a change of heart and decided to find the rightful owner. He
leaves his contact details with the shopkeepers in the vicinity of the spot where
Farkhondeh had found the gold coins. When the real owner of the coins actually
showed up and claimed the coins, Rahim had no way to pay the debt and had
to go back to prison. However, when the warden gets ear of the gold coins being
returned, he praises Rahim publicly and arranges a televised interview with him.
After Rahim understands that he is not able to find the real owner of the gold
coins, as a precondition for his employment and as a response to all slanders and
rumors, he asks his girlfriend to impersonate the owner of the gold coins. This is
not the first time Rahim is asked to bend under external pressure which results
in his “individual reality” to be overwhelmed by “collective reality.” For example,
at some other point, when the warden and his assistant are briefing Rahim on
details pertaining to the upcoming TV interview, including his good deed of
returning the coins to its rightful owner, Rahim tries to correct them about one
of the details, but they insisted that it was best to keep his statements as they
were initially presented. Rahim had to speak according to their directions. In this
particular scene, set in the prison warden’s office, the film displays the roles that
almost all players share in shaping the existing dilemma.4
By not being allowed
to correct one of the details in his story, Rahim entangled himself in a larger and
more complex falsehood. In the end, no one could agree on the storyline, and
Rahim is held responsible for all the lies and alterations. He is now perceived as
a con-man.
There are important symbols in the movie. For instance, there are ones
which confirm that the past shapes the future, or possibilities of the future
is signaled amply throughout the film. As Rahim is leaving the prison, one
can see the Persian translation of a sentence from the Qur’an on the prison
wall. As mentioned before, it reads, “If you have been thankful for your past,

4. Mazloumi / Film Reviews 109
God will increase your sustenance, but if you have been ungrateful, God will
decrease your sustenance.” The fact that this is written on the prison walls is
significant. The sentence seems to speak for the ingratitude of one’s past or
the bad choices that one has made, which eventually contribute to a larger
dilemma. Throughout the film, one observes a deliberate connection between
government and religion as both a factor in shaping a collective reality, a reality
that overshadows individual realities. Historical and cultural factors are also
parts of this overarching collective reality, thereby affecting one’s individual
choices, especially, the ones Rahim makes. Rahim goes to a place which the
spectator later understands to be the grave of the ancient Persian king, Xerxes.
The way the movie foregrounds this site, and its dizzying height evinces its
importance, that is, how the ancient past can also affect future outcomes. The
title of the film appears on the screen when the central character reaches the
top of the tomb which is that of King Xerxes, the son of Darius the Great,
dating back approximately 2,500 years. The director portrays this historical
figure’s tomb as a symbol for the history of Iran and Rahim as a citizen of Iran,
where citizens are somehow expected to serve a collective voice, truth or not,
rather than individual choice and self-direction.
Another example of symbolism is Siavash’s (i.e., Rahim’s son) suffering
from a severe speech impairment. This symbolizes the silencing of successive
generations of Iranians. Like his mythical namesake, Rahim’s son, tries to
defend his father’s honor and integrity when he is accused of being a con-
man. The accusation stems from the fact that the charity members who were
supposed to help him with his debt learn that Rahim has asked his girlfriend to
impersonate the real owner of the gold coins. With additional discrepancies that
are subsequently revealed, Rahim appears as a con-man but in truth, he is simply
desperate to pay a debt he cannot truly pay by any means.
From this point onward, Rahim’s reality becomes a public reality shared
by charities, media, prison authorities, and beyond, transforming his personal
reality into a collective one. However, as Rahim’s reality becomes more
collective, it takes on more rigidity. In short, a fiasco. It all comes to a head when
a government organization offers Rahim a job provided that he agrees to submit
documents that verify his good deed, especially since social media is spreading
some rumors to the contrary.
This is the first time that “The Hero” turns into “a hero, a hero of some sort.”
It does not matter if he is a decent man who succumbs to his extreme pressure
and his personal exigencies, or he has not been so good in the first place. The
point here is that the collective societal voice distorts and controls the individual
one. For further illumination, one may draw a comparison between A Hero and
BertoltBrecht’sfamousplaytitledLifeofGalileowhereGalileohasaconversation
with another character, Andrea, about being a hero.

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Parallels between Characters in Life of Galileo and
A Hero
The dialogue between Rahim and the creditor on the definition of the word,
hero, and his relationship with his people is reminiscent of a dialogue by Brecht’s
characters, Andrea, in Life of Galileo:
On the one hand, in Farhadi’s movie, Bahram says, “Poor people whose
hero is you.” Rahim replies: “Poor you who can’t stand seeing people show me
respect.”5
On the other hand, one reads in Brecht’s play, “Andrea (in the door):
‘Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.’” Here is how Galileo retorts, “No
Andrea: ‘Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.’”6
Both Galileo and Rahim are under enormous pressure to fulfill other
people’s expectations of them. This pressure is exerted by both their fans and
their critics. Those who admire them, and those who inadvertently crush their
bones, as the mélange of government, religion, and the larger society can do.
Farhadi’s Rejection of Plagiarism Charge
FarhadihasmadeitclearthatBrecht’splayhasbeenhismainsourceofinspiration,
although he had not referred to the above dialogues in Brecht’s play. It is also
possible to draw a parallel between the movie and the plagiarism charge against
Farhadi accusing him of creating “a hero” instead of “the hero.” It is interesting
to note that whether Farhadi won the case or not, there will always be questions
and ambiguities accompanying the movie. Since the same would apply to
Rahim, therefore, Farhadi had to prove both his own and Rahim’s integrity and
originality by resisting against strong surrounding forces. Subsequently, I tend to
advance the relevance and ubiquity of the idea behind Farhadi’s movie. I argue
that this renders the movie at the same time thought-provoking and somewhat,
unpalatable, especially for the Iranian spectators because, as I explain elsewhere,
they may easily assimilate with the plight in which Rahim finds himself, having
little chance of extricating himself.
As I mentioned earlier, one of the criticisms that Rahim receives for his
altercation with his creditor is that he, as a public figure, is supposed to model
certain ideals. For example, his brother-in-law chides him, “Now that you are
a public figure and people look up to you, you are not supposed to behave like
that!”7
This is the point at which the amalgam of tradition, culture, religion, and
social media exert the maximum pressure to reshape Rahim’s reality.
Further to the film’s popular reception and sales, Babak Ghafouirazar holds
that its relatively good sales statistics did not comport with the high hopes.8
Ghafouriazar also quotes Moslehi9
that that was partly due to the controversy
regarding the originality of the script. Based on Mosleh’s observation, I contend
that there is a more profound reason behind this mild approval of A Hero: it is

6. Mazloumi / Film Reviews 111
possible to consider the movie as a panoramic view of contemporary Iranians.
Each one of them is a hero who could watch themselves in the story not only
synchronically, but also diachronically. Culturally within Iran, none has the
ability to defy or even question the status quo, which has crushed their bones
at every turn, especially within the past 40 years. Now, if one were to consider
non-Iranian viewers, especially Westerners, who pursue Iranian cinema through
prestigious film festivals, perhaps everything will make sense. Not that the
movie is not intended for the Iranian viewers, but it is in another part of the
world which has the most gravitas for Farhadi. This is different from some of his
previous movies such as About Elly in which the possibility of defying the status
quo exists, at least on an abstract and theoretical level.
About Elly provides the viewer with the possibility of envisioning various
names and identities for the absent and sought-after character of the movie.
There is the possibility of coming up with not a fixed and encumbering reality,
but rather an array of alternating realities that are constantly at play with one
another. The very name Elly itself strikes a note of profound ambiguity: it could
be the short form of “Elham, Elnaz, Elmira”10
or some other female Persian given
name existing individually, or yielding into one another. An important feature of
About Elly is that the interplay of the minimal pairs and the ensuing ambiguity
over the identity of Elly is perceived by the viewer as being synchronic. In this
particular film, we find closure, contrary to the film A Hero. These feelings of
beginning and ending make the movie less excruciating and more attractive for
Iranian spectators. On the contrary, A Hero turns into a societal horror.
It might also be useful to make comparisons and contrasts with Farhadi’s
other movie titled The Salesman (2016)11
which contains a very skillful
denouement whereby the spectator will realize how fuzzy and blurred the
borders are between the play (the couple who play the roles of Willy and Linda
Loman in the 1949 play by Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman), and real life (the
man who unwittingly intrudes into the apartment, where the first couple live, to
meet a sex worker who no longer lived there, and his wife who appears later).
Moreimportantly,theydonotreadilynoticetheparallelismbetweentheleading
couple’s theatrical practice and their real lives until the end. As a result, the fact
that the viewers may find themselves in a similar situation, or they associate
themselves with it becomes evident only toward the end. Furthermore, the
whole predicament that the two couples find themselves in is not unescapable
historically, culturally, and/or socially.
Babak Mazloumi
Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. He
is also a literary translator who has translated works by Robert Coover, Dave Eggers,

7. 112 Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies, Vol. 7.1
Ismail Kadare, Steven Galloway, and Bogdan Suceava into Persian. Mazloumi’s
publications in English include a book review which appeared in World Literature
Today as well as two critical essays, one in Iran Namag, a peer-reviewed journal
affiliated with the University of Toronto, and another one in Text and Presentation,
also a peer-reviewed journal affiliated with the Comparative Drama Conference.
Endnotes
1. Pulver, Andrew, “Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi faces plagiarism trial in Iranian
court, The Guardian, 04.05.2022, www.theguardian.com/film/2022/apr/05/asghar-farhadi
-loses-a-hero-plagiarism-case-in-iranian-court
2. Ghafouriazar, Babak, “Mizan-e Esteqbal Az Qahreman Gooya-ye Chist?” “What Does
Popular Reception of A Hero Tell Us? https://www.radiofarda.com/a/31583686.html11/22
/2021.
3. Setoodeh, Ramin, “Asghar Farhadi Forcefully Denies Plagiarism Allegations: ‘My Film Was
Not Based on the Documentary,’” Variety, 05.17.2022, https://variety.com/2022/film/news
/asghar-farhadi-denies-plagiarism-a-hero-1235269157/.
4. A Hero (Qahraman), directed by Asghar Farhadi (2021; France: Memento Films, 2021),
DVD, 127 minutes. 1:40:16–1:40:20.
5. A Hero (Qahraman), directed by Asghar Farhadi, 1:27:34–1:27:42.
6. Brecht, Bertolt, Galileo. Tr. Charles Laughton, New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1943, p. 115.
7. A Hero (Qahraman), directed by Asghar Farhadi, 1:33:23–1:33:26.
8. Ghafouriazar, Babak, “Mizan-e Esteqbal Az Qahreman Gooya-ye Chist?” [“What Does
Popular Reception of A Hero Tell Us? [online] https://www.radiofarda.com/a/31583686.html.
9. Ghafouriazar, Babak, “Mizan-e Esteqbal Az Qahreman Gooya-ye Chist?” [“What Does
Popular Reception of A Hero Tell Us? [online] https://www.radiofarda.com/a/31583686.html.
10. About Elly (Dar bāre-ye Elly), directed by Asghar Farhadi (2009; Le Cannet: Dreamlab
Films, 2009), DVD, 119 minutes. 0:49:01–0:49:03.
11. The Salesman (Fourooshandeh), directed by Asghar Farhadi, (2016; Paris: Arte France
Cinema), DVD, 125 minutes.
doi:10.2979/jims.7.1.08