A moral drama with Asghar himself

Yoursquove gotta be blessed with studbull confidence in your script to film the opening five minutes of a movie with nothing but the lead charactermdashbetween long and tracking shotsmdashwalking out of prison to meet his brotherinlaw whorsquos a construction worker fixing the Tomb of Xerxes in Marvdasht IranThus starts Cannes 2022 awardee Asghar Farhadirsquos A Hero playing in Indian theatres Friday onwards Better still for its bombastic title the hero in A Hero a goodlooking gent called Mr Soltani Amir Jadidi is an inmate on a twoday parole having been in prison for three years over a debt he couldnrsquot repay That hardly makes him a heroWhat follows sort of could In the sense that he claims to have found a bag full of gold coins It was worth an amount that could head him closer to the prisonrsquos exit gate Pledging that money he could technically convince his lender to sign off a ldquocreditorrsquos agreementrdquo pardoning him of the crime He can return home to his only kid who stays with his siblingrsquos familyOnly that Mr Soltani chooses to return that bag to a bank spreading the word on whatrsquos lsquolost and foundrsquomdashasking the rightful owner to get in touch with the safekeeperThe proverbial herorsquos journey here is anything but The film is a moral dramamdashso subtle that audiences otherwise hardened by the hanging balance of life and death that conflicts in thrillers tend to deal with will wonder whatrsquos the big deal here anywayLike Italian neorealism of the 1940s50s thatrsquos been the hallmark of Iranian New Wave it deals with human tensions so strongly under the surface and seemingly trivial on the face of it that you begin to internalise movies for what it is Rather than view them off your head They defy genreAs with Abbas Kiarostami spinning a quiet suspense about a man posing as his fellow director Mohsen Makhmalbaf Close Up Or Majid Majidi drawing tears for a boy who wants to come third in a school race Children of Heaven Or indeed Farhadirsquos own films Theyrsquore the finest from the Iranian stable at the momentFirstly the families feel like oursmdashIndians are more similar to Persian homes than we realise There is precious little going on in terms of striking action on screenBut you canrsquot take your eyes off because Farhadi knows how to stage drama with such subtle honestymdashtaking shots with actors always in motion and frames within framesmdashthat there is never a wasted moment when something new isnrsquot getting unravelled stillAs with Farhadirsquos Oscar winners A Separation 2011 and The Salesman 2016 so with A Hero 2022 among multiple characters you constantly look for whorsquos right whorsquos not Nobodyrsquos fully at fault or indisputably a saintYet everybodyrsquos doing the right thing as it were There is gentleness to this approach which if it wasnrsquot for the soft power of Persian cinema we wouldrsquove continued to believe in the hardness of Iranian society That the Western governments would prefer for its propaganda anywayMr Soltani a hero with help of a charity organisation sympathetic authorities in prison with possible agendas of their own and a consequent interest shown by mainstream press to his act of unlikely grace and kindness is on his way out of prison as rewardOnly that nobody is sure has he been making up stuff all along No you can tell his story is not a lie But itrsquos not the truth either What hangs over him is also the spectre of social media that can both make and shame heroes overnightSo far so great Now let me take you through another ethical conundrum Just like the fictional Mr Soltani there is an actual man called Mr Shokri whorsquos been in jail for three years over financial payment issues He got his prison term in Iran waived offmdashfor the hero he became on national TV after finding a bag of gold advertising for its rightful owner having passed on the bounty to a bankLike Mr Soltani Mr Shokri excelled at paintwork on prison walls and has a child living with his sibling Also one isnrsquot certain who actually received that bag of gold if there was one at allFilmmaker Azadeh Masihzadeh made a documentary All Winners All Losers available on YouTube on Mr Shokri accusing Farhadi of plagiarism thereafter This is no coincidence Masihzadeh was Farhadirsquos film studentHe charged her with criminal defamation that could result in prison term plus public lashing The Iranian court threw out the case It will decide on the plagiarism charge against Farhadi instead Which if proven true means at the bare minimum Farhadi is a debtor to Masihzadehmdashhe owes her all the money he made from A Hero There could be a prison term tooI watched both films backtoback to mull over plagiarism itself GrammysOscars go to covers and remakesmdasheverything real that inspires fiction is termed research The issue therefore is that of theftmdashof credit None but an Iranian film on the making of A Hero can do justice to such a soft delicate moral drama Of course anybody but Farhadi should make itMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper