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Asghar Farhadi: Three Remarkable Films

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Sep 17, 2023
Category: Drama

Only a handful of directors have won the Best Foreign Film Oscar more than once: Vittorio de Sica and Federico Fellini (four times each), Ingmar Bergman (three times), and René Clément and Akira Kurosawa (twice each).

Asghar Farhadi won Best Foreign Language Film Oscars for “A Separation” (2011) and “The Salesman” (2016). In 2021, he won the Cannes Film Festival’s Grand Prix for “A Hero.” All three films can be streamed on Amazon Prime. Yes, they’re in Farsi, which you don’t speak, but the subtitles are excellent.

Farhadi is the first Iranian to win an Oscar, the only multiple foreign director who’s still alive, and, at 51, likely to make more films and win more awards.

These three are his best and most honored…

A HERO
The film starts with Rahim Soltani getting a two-day leave from prison, where he’s serving a term for a debt that, in prison, he isn’t likely to be able to repay. Soon he’s in possession of 17 gold coins. If he sells them, he might be able to repay part of his debt and be released from jail. Instead, he searches for the rightful owner, and, when she appears, his sister hands them over. Publicity follows. Now he’s a hero: he found lost coins and returned them. Uh… not so fast. Maybe those coins are just the setup for the movie’s real drama, which, as you’ll see, is played in smaller and smaller interior spaces. You might say — metaphorically and in reality — “the walls close in.” As in Farhadi’s other films, you hold your breath for the last fifteen minutes, and when it’s over, you have to talk about it. [To watch the preview, click here. To stream “A Hero” on Amazon Prime, click here.]

A SEPARATION
In this family drama framed as a legal thriller, a well-to-do husband and father is accused of pushing a mother’s helper and causing her to miscarry. Meanwhile, his wife wants to leave the country with her daughter; the husband insists on staying at home in Tehran to care for his frail and elderly father, who suffers from dementia and needs constant attention. The Times: “Because self-control seems to be, in this setting, both a deeply ingrained habit and a public virtue, eruptions of feeling — some of which come close to physical violence — arrive with special force in “A Separation.” And they leave a knot of ethical and philosophical questions that may make the walk home from the theater as argumentative as the film itself. Most of the characters’ behavior is viewed with sympathy and skepticism, and the frequent bouts of legal wrangling invite endless interpretation of every aspect of the story. Somehow it is all perfectly clear, and yet at the same time tantalizingly and heartbreakingly mysterious. [To watch the preview, click here. To stream “A Separation” on Amazon Prime, click here.]

THE SALESMAN

Another brilliantly constructed film — in this case, literally. It begins with cracks in the walls of Emad and Rana’s Tehran apartment. It’s possible the high-rise building will collapse. A colleague finds them a temporary apartment, filled with the possessions of a former tenant. Rana is assaulted in the shower. Her assailant vanishes, leaving behind his pickup truck. She won’t go to the police. Emad reluctantly becomes a vigilante. And if you think that’s the story… think again. The Times: “With exquisite patience and attention to detail, Farhadi builds a solid and suspenseful plot out of ordinary incidents, and packs it with rich and resonant ideas…. His control is astonishing, as is the discipline of the actors.” [To watch the preview, click here. To stream “Salesman” on Amazon Prime, click here.]

THE CONTROVERSY OVER HIS COLLABORATIONS

In 2022, The New Yorker published a long, devastating investigation about Farhadi’s writing process, which seems to exploit uncredited collaborators on his most successful films. The unforgiving title: Did the Oscar-Winning Director Asghar Farhadi Steal Ideas?

The story, in brief: A student in his workshop found a story, researched it, and made a documentary. Farhadi appropriated it, bullied her to sign a statement that her film “Is based on Mr. Asghar Farhadi’s proposal and idea that he shared in his documentary-filmmaking workshop.” She asked him to amend the agreement. He told her it is foolish to sign anything without consulting a lawyer. Suits and counter-suits followed. In the New Yorker piece, this is not the only instance of Farhadi’s duplicity.

DONALD TRUMP AND ASGHAR FARHADI 

When Donald Trump issued an executive order barring Iranians from entering the country, Farhadi said he would not attend the 2017 Academy Awards, despite being nominated, and then winning, for the best foreign-language film.

After he won, Farhadi had a prepared statement read by Anousheh Ansari: “I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight. My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of the other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S. Dividing the world into the ‘us’ and ‘our enemies’ categories creates fear, a deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which themselves have been victims of aggression. Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others — an empathy that we need today more than ever.”

Prior to the ceremony, all five directors nominated for foreign language film issued a joint statement that condemned “the climate of fanaticism and nationalism” in the United States, among other countries. The directors – Farhadi, Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann), Hannes Holm (A Man Called Ove), Martin Zandvliet (Land of Mine) and Bentley Dean and Martin Butler (Tanna) – said that no matter which films wins, the Oscar is dedicated to “all the people, artists, journalists and activists who are working to foster unity and understand, and who uphold freedom of expression and human dignity – values whose protection is now more important than ever.”