Un héroe

No one is lying, and yet no one is telling the truth. An incredibly polished script, detailed direction, the phenomenal Amir Jadidi in the lead role of a man who acts all too human and thus becomes an ordinary, smaller-than-life hero. Unfortunately, the fates of such people usually end badly. This is Farhadi's best film in a decade. The emotional punch of A Separation may never again be matched by the Iranian, but he still does great work. (20.01.2022)

From the individual to the group and from minor lies to major dilemmas, Farhadi systematically builds a portrait of a society in which a selfless act is something so rare that it must be subject to an investigation as if it were a divine revelation. The protagonist initially has a clear goal and approaches it quickly and relatively smoothly, and the pace is hectic due to the brief shots and the amount of movement in the picture and sounds outside of it. However, the events and the portrait of the main protagonist gradually become more complicated. The narrative no longer holds exclusively to Rahim’s perspective, as it gives more space to the other characters, who are perhaps no less in the right. The boundaries between truth and lies and between good and evil become indistinct; it is no longer about achieving something, but saving face. However, this formalistic and stylistic sophistication is apparent only in retrospect. While watching the film, the events that happen in it seem natural and spontaneous rather than contrived. I see in this Farhadi’s directorial and screenwriting mastery, as well as the film’s similarity to the best works of neorealism. Furthermore, the realisation that true heroism does not need acknowledgement from the outside, that what’s more more important is whether we have done the right thing rather than whether we conform to others’ ideas of what is right and get the stamp of (character) quality, easily arises from the situations and decisions depicted in the film without a hint of moralising. 80% (22.01.2022)

My third attempt to swallow Farhadi and it turned out exactly the same as the previous two. A Hero reminds me a lot of Romanian New Wave films, which I also have a problem with, in that they are theses that are merely serviced by the film. The whole thing then offers no joy to watch, with only uninteresting and mechanical situations thrown in throughout to support the resulting thesis. And so, in order to make the ending as legible as possible, it has to help itself with sometimes very convoluted situations and very muddled characters. As a result, after you finish watching A Hero, you'll be nodding along with your fellow viewers at what this movie is right about, but you won't be talking about the movie at all, just the idea, as if it were a magazine article or a book. And that's not what I think a discussion after a movie should be like. (19.04.2022)