SalarHaqq
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Iranians shine in Cannes film festival:
Farhadi’s Latest Drama Receives 5-Minute Standing Ovation in Cannes Festival
July 14, 2021
Farhadi’s latest Cannes competition entry A Hero is a social drama about moral dilemmas and the alacritous flexibility of principles.
The auteur focuses on his usual themes, holding up a mirror, and offering his viewers glimpses into the psyche of contemporary Iranian society.
The brilliant performances of actors and Farhadi’s engaging script have received critical acclaim since yesterday.
The drama delivers a tale about ethics and integrity, and how they clash with each other when personal stakes are greater.
Shot during the pandemic in Shiraz and readied in time to debut at Cannes, the distribution rights of A Hero have already been scooped up by Amazon, and it is expected to drop on Prime video soon.
Farhadi, a Cannes favourite, attended the premiere alongside his cast on the Croisette, where he received a standing ovation lasting several minutes even before the screening began. The film will compete for the prestigious Palme d’Or (his third if he manages this feat.)
The soft-spoken and affable Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is out on parole from his prison sentence.
A separated man with a son with speech impediment who lives with his sister’s family, he has defaulted on his debts that sent him to prison. But if he can manage to pay off his debts, he can avoid spending the rest of the years of his punishment in jail. He may have found a way out: his girlfriend Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldust) recently stumbled upon a lost handbag with some gold coins that she wants to sell to raise money for Rahim’s debt repayment.
But when the couple consult with a pawn broker, they realise the money may simply not be enough for a prison bailout. Rahim has a change of mind, and wants to return the coins.
When the prison officials get wind of Rahim’s deed after the bag is returned to its owner, they milk it to their benefit to distract public scrutiny of a prison death. Rahim is now forced to pretend he found the handbag, and the news gets picked up by local media that even prompts a charity to organise a fundraiser for his bailout.
But things quickly go south when the disbelieving creditor raises doubts about Rahim’s story, over and above questioning the prudence of honouring Rahim for a deed that is only ethical and commonplace. Now, Rahim must convince his skeptical potential employer that his tale is indeed true, over and above getting hold of the funds raised by the charity that he is at risk of losing. In another director’s hands, things may have been different but this is Farhadi so the protracted drama unspools further with episodes in which Rahim takes one bad step after another, pushing him further away from his liberation.
update:
Asghar Farhadi Wins Grand Prix of Cannes Film Festival
Farhadi jointly won the award along with Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No. 6.”.
In his speech after receiving the award from eminent American filmmaker Oliver Stone, Farhadi said he has not stopped making films in the past 36 years despite all the restrictions with the hope of raising questions about the bitter social conditions of Iran.
He also expressed hope that he would be able to continue his career as he is confident that awareness-raising is one of the most important ways to save Iran.
Farhadi’s latest film, A Hero, received a five-minute standing ovation in its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival a few days ago.
Respected brother, if you will allow me to express my take on this: I do not believe tat this is something a patriotic Iranian ought to celebrate or take pride in.
Why?
1) Almost all of Farhadi's motion pictures shot in Iran present a dark, negative, depressing image of Iranian society. Which is precisely why they are being showered with praise in the west.
In fact, a couple of years ago, he directed a film which reflects upon certain social issues affecting Spain... And guess what? That film was treated as insignificant by western reviewers, and it was entirely ignored by major film festivals. Whereas his socially critical films about Iran are, on the contrary, advertized in the most frenetic ways.
Like virtually every other Iranian director whose works get crowned at western-based film festivals, Farhadi is echoing one way or another the dominant anti-Iran propaganda spread by western regimes and their mainstream media mouthpieces. All these filmmakers are aligned on the liberal agenda.
Truth is that Iranian cinema as a whole (much like other forms of contemporary Iranian arts) has mostly turned into a weapon instrumentalized against Iran by her existential enemies.
Works that get major airplay in the west, are generally co-produced by western companies. What is more, their scripts or the fundamental ideas underlying them, often originate from western sources.
There's this ominous German woman who is present each year at Tehran's international Fajr film festival... it is said that she puts on the table critical topics to be turned into films by Iranian directors - in exchange for funding offered by major western production companies, as well as guarantees of effective subsequent promotion.
2) Please do not assume for a second that film festivals in the west are politically neutral events (like the one in Cannes, which is actually one of the worst, even though culturally more discerning than the US Oscars, which of course are just as biased on the political level).
In fact, they are weapons of soft power in the hands of the globalist oligarchy to promote their nefarious agenda. Hence, standing ovations by an elite public devoted to this agenda, aren't really a good sign.
When it comes to Iranian cinema, a look at the sort of films that win awards at international festivals versus those which don't, make the politically motivated discrimination quite obvious. Indeed, truly fine feature length films such as Mājarāye Nimruz, Tangeye Abu Ghorayb, Lottery or valuable TV series such as Gāndo or Khāneye 'Amn will never gain entry into western-based festivals, western film critics will simply ignore them or severely put them down, and internet websites focused on cinema will systematically rate them below their actual worth.
Even a somewhat more commercial but interesting production such as Mārmulak was not well received by western critics, simply because a revolutionary-oriented film fund financed its production, and even though this movie could actually be interpreted in different ways. So you can imagine how important contributions to Iranian cinema such as the seminal early work of Hatamikia have been boycotted in the west due to not conveying the kind of messages nor promoting the sort of values western regimes want the Iranian public to be subjected to.
3) Generally speaking, "celebrities" (as they are referred to nowadays in Iran) from show business and sports, are some of the most lowly elements of Iranian society as far as their political engagement is concerned. Complete westernized sell-outs in their immense majority, I've no doubt you'd be profoundly shocked to notice how diametrically opposed their views are to your nationalist or patriotic political ideals.
From Mahnaz Afshar's cowardly "Twitter" attack against Iraqi PMU's who were selflessly providing aid to victims of natural hazards in Khuzestan in 2019, to the myriad of actors who participated in an advertisement video inviting Iranians to make their DNA samples available to shady US-companies with probable zionist links (which will only help the enemy develope gene-specific biological weapons customized against Iranians), political and social attitudes displayed in these circles are truly disgusting.
4) I also used to view occurrences like the recent one at Cannes under a positive light. Until Jafar Panahi's treasonous conduct during the failed 2009 "Green movement", as well as the politically biased, official backing Panahi received from organizers of western film festivals (Cannes in particular), achieved to open my eyes for good.
You see, we might tell ourselves these prizes awarded to Iranian filmmakers by western institutions testify to the talent of contemporary Iranian artists. And even though they can be considered as talented indeed, the fact remains that the only reason behind these awards is the subversive social-political messaging these foreign commissioned films carry through, in line with the zio-American "regime change" agenda against Iran.
These films are not made for the broad public (although most of those intended for the masses are equally subversive and dangerous, but that's another topic): their target audience is the 20%-40% most educated segment of the western public, as well as the of Iran's cinematographic, artistic and intellectual social microcosm, ie an influential elite within these respective countries.
And the message they transmit, or in other terms, what those western viewers who engaged in a 5-minute standing ovation were probably thinking, can be described as follows: "Iranians are such wonderful people, they're in fact pretty much like us. See, such a secularized and liberal folk, who share the same aspirations and outlooks on life... so we can and should sympathize with them. Only problem is their fundamentalist, extremist regime, which curtails their liberties and prevents them from deploying their enormous potential. Such a pity that is! Look how emancipated and independent-minded their women are, and yet they must struggle against Islamic law imposed by the reactionary regime, as well as repressive paternalistic traditions." Etc.
This line of propaganda is engineered by Iran's existential enemies in order to ensure that in the event of another "colored revolution" attempt or even some worse form of destabilization, this intellectually (and materially) privileged class of the west will unconditionally and automatically support the western- and zionist-backed opposition to the IR.
The zio-American empire is implementing a two-pronged propagandistic discourse against Iran aimed at its own public: while it feeds the liberal crowd of westerners with narratives such as the above, it simultaneously brainwashes conservative and more radical segments of western society with outright racist / islamophobic types of discourse (e.g. anti-Iranian evangelical zionist propaganda and so on). Hence, all segments of society and all sensitivities of public opinion are covered and psychologically conditioned to sympathize with the "regime change agenda" against Iran at all times.
I would also recommend watching some of Omid Dana's videos dedicated to the subject:
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