Lately, filmmaker Asghar Farhadi bears a definite resemblance to some of his characters. And just as he exposes his characters to being judged by the public, he exposes himself to the same treatment — albeit perhaps not always by pure choice.
Farhadi knows all too well that such judgment can be extremely harsh, and often cruel. If may be this understanding that makes him such an honorable and distinguished filmmaker, and for many Iranians, a national treasure.
When Asghar Farhadi won the first Oscar for Iranian cinema, the media published photographs of his father's tea shop to give the public a little idea of his background and where he came from. People in the neighborhood had draped a large banner across the front of the shop in Khomeini City in Isfahan province to congratulate Farhadi in the city where Farhadi started his life in cinema.
Asghar Farhadi's father and brother
He was 15 when he became a member of Isfahan Young Cinema Association. Mehdi Ghasemi, the head of the association at the time, looks back at that time: "In 1987, city cinema associations were dependent on Tehran, and every year we put aside a day for a specific exam to admit interested young students. This test was not the same all over the country and the questions came from Tehran.
“We had to admit 25 male and 25 female students that year. Mr. Farhadi was a resident of Khomeini City in Isfahan, and the media was not as far-reaching as it is now, so it was difficult for everyone to know about the association's call. A few days after the test, he came to us with a friend and insisted that he be allowed to join the association. But it was not possible for us and I told him the classes had started and God willing, he could join the next year. When I saw his eagerness to attend classes and forums, I asked him a few questions and told him to write four lines on the subject of a flower. He wrote in very good and strong prose, and he answered every question we asked; I was persuaded to use my management discretion and register him in the association without him having to take an exam. Maybe if I had not seen his insistence and enthusiasm that day, and had not eventually allowed him to register, the young man's life would have been different."
In those early days, Farhadi made his first short films using 8mm cameras.
Farhadi made his first films after he joined the Isfahan Young Cinema Association
He was later accepted at the University of Tehran’s Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, to study theater and literature.
From Some of Iran's Best-Loved TV to his First Screenplay
After writing and directing for student theater, Asghar Farhadi began writing for television in the mid-1970s, and he contributed to some of the most successful and popular television series of the period. At that time, of course, there were no satellite channels or the internet, so a large number of Iranians would have watched series Farhadi wrote for or helped direct and produce, including Youth, The Story of a City, The Awaiting, and Behind the Entrance Exam.Childhood Notes, which he wrote and his wife Parisa Bakhtavar directed, was also widely known and celebrated.
Behind the scenes of The Awaiting (Chesk be Rah) series
Farhadi’s first screenplay was Low Altitude, written in 2001. It was directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia, one of the most important directors of Iranian cinema at the time. His films, often focused on the Iran-Iraq war, attracted the attention of both film critics and audiences. In recent years, Hatamikia has forged a close relationship with the government and has become one Farhadi’s harshest critics.
Farhadi wrote the script for Low Altitude, directed by for Ebrahim Hatamikia
Asghar Farhadi shot his first feature film a year after Low Altitude. He directed and co-wrote Dancing in the Dust, which tells the story of a girl whose gossip destroys her mother’s marriage. On Low Altitude, he worked with Alireza Bazrafshan and Mohammad Reza Fazeli, with whom he had previously worked on television scripts.
Dancing in the Dust, although not hugely popular in cinemas, was well received by film critics and judges of both domestic and foreign film festivals. It won the Special Jury Prize for best film at Iran’s Fajr Festival and the Cinema House Festival awarded it Best Screenplay, Best Film, and Best Acting Performance. The Asia-Pacific Film Festival also recognized Dancing in the Dust, and awarded it Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Poster for Farhadi's first feature film Dancing in the Dust
Farhadi's second feature film, The City is Beautiful, looks at the Sharia concept of blood money and how it is unequally applied along gender lines. It also looks at capital punishment in Iran, and the practice of handing down death sentences to people who commit crimes as minors. It tells the story of a boy held in a correctional center for murdering a girl, knowing that when he reaches the age of 18 he will be hanged. At the same time, the family of the dead girl have to pay half of the boy’s blood money in order to bring about the punishment under Sharia rules for retribution.
At the time of its release, the film did not attract significant attention in Iran. Although it was nominated in several categories at the Fajr Film Festival, the Crystal Simorgh prize for the best sound recording was its only accolade. But it was recognized outside the country, receiving major awards at several international festivals, including the Indian Film Festival and the Warsaw Film Festival
Behind the scenes of The City is Beautiful
Farhadi's third film surprised film critics and audiences alike. Chaharshanbe Suri [The Last Wednesday of the Year] looks at betrayal, and challenges his audience to take a more active role in casting moral judgment on his characters. It’s a theme that runs through many of his films: moral judgment and who is meting it out.
The film won the Best Director award at the Fajr Film Festival and a long list of international awards, from the Locarno Golden Cheetah to the Kerala Silver Scorpion.
Behind the scenes of Chaharshanbe Suri
After Chaharshanbe Suri,Farhadi wrote three more successful screenplays over the course of the next two years. The first was the script for Canaan, co-written with Mani Haghighi, who also directed it. Then came Tambourine, which he wrote for his wife Parisa Bakhtavar, and was more of a comedy following in the footsteps of Behind the Entrance Exam and Childhood Notes. The third was a collaboration with one of the most prominent directors of the new wave of Iranian cinema, Masoud Kimiaei, the screenplay for Trial in the Street.
About Elly
In 2008, he made one of the most important films of contemporary Iranian cinema, a film that many critics consider to be the finest of Farhadi's career: About Elly.
The critics were taken with the screenplay, but also the directing and acting. At the same time, this was the beginning of Farhadi falling out of favor with Iran’s official cultural environment. When the film was put forth to be screened at the Fajr Film Festival, it caused considerable embarrassment for the organizers because it starred Golshifteh Farahani, who had recently left Iran.
In the end, the film was shown, but it was not listed in the festival’s running order.
About Elly, like Chaharshanbe Suri before it, puts the audience in the position of judge, and used this morality to create an environment of suspense that was shocking to many film-goers.
"To me, the visualization of a script is a 'table' of crossword puzzles,” Farhadi said in an interview with Etemad newspaper for its 28th Fajr Festival special edition. “A table with vertical and horizontal columns, and the fewer black cells in this table, the stronger designer you are. The film can be seen in terms of tables that only have a few horizontal rows, and no words intersect; they are suitable for elementary school children. For me, Chaharshanbe Suri was a complicated table, and now we have About Elly, a table with very few black cells. Writing the script for About Elly was like drawing a table for myself, and I really enjoyed it. Because it was also a kind of game. I was entertained by the puzzles and intricacies. I'm trying to make this table bigger with each movie I do, and to reduce the black cells. Writing a general synopsis before engaging in dialogue is a crucial part of this process.”
About Elly won the Best Director Award and the Audience Award at the Fajr Film Festival, as well as a long list of international awards, including the Golden Kerala Pheasant and the Berlin Silver Bear.
A year after About Elly was released, Farhadi began work, including the script, for Nader and Simin, A Separation, better known as A Separation, and steps were in place for him to film in Germany. “After attending the Berlin Film Festival, I had the opportunity to make a film with German and French producers," he told Film Magazine. "Peyman Maadi and I came up with a plan and wrote the script step by step, but it became completed. We signed a contract and everything was decided quietly. At the beginning of this year, we went to Germany with Peyman and stayed there for a while to work on the film and also to get a sense of the feel for the final version of the script. But after a while, I gradually became suspicious. I said to myself: why am I doing this here? Everything was ready and in place. I was in the subway one day and I just called Peyman, who was somewhere else in Berlin, and said, 'Let's not make the film.' He said, reasonably, that it was definitely not a good time now and that my opinion would change. He said that in no way should we miss this opportunity to produce at this level. I was in Iran three or four days later and starting the script for A Separation. I already had a plan in mind, and it dominated my thoughts. I called my assistants and we got together.
"As it was with About Elly, I had a lot of scattered notes for different scenes, arranged them and wrote the script. I had the general structure and sequences. The most important thing was that it did not resemble the previous films, either in the performance or in the story. I spent a lot of time on the story. Work on the script lasted from May to the end of August, and in that same time, parts of the pre-production work were finished."
A Separation won the first Oscar for Iranian cinema. And yet, so many problems followed. The film was banned by order of Javad Shamqadari, the then-deputy director for cinema at the Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance. The ban was linked to comments Asghar Farhadi made when production was complete. He told the Cinema House. that he hoped one day conditions would allow for Golshifteh Farahani, Bahram Beizai, Amir Naderi and Jafar Panahi to work in Iranian cinema. Shamqadari told Fars News Agency that Mr. Farhadi's words had been created an awkward situation and if he didn’t take them back the licence for the film would be revoked.
In an interview with the Iranian Students’ News Agency, Farhadi said he had been misquoted and his comments misinterpreted. He said his comments had no political thrust. "In my opinion, it was completely related to cinema and films and nothing else,” he said.
"My initial response was surprise,” Farhadi told Film Magazine. “It was quite clear to anyone what I was trying to say, and I certainly didn’t think it would become an issue. After that, I decided to remain silent. I saw it was becoming the focal point and affecting the whole of cinema beyond just me and my film. If Iranian cinema suffered from it long term, everyone, including me, would have Asghar Farhadi to blame. Other people who had nothing to do with this could be harmed. Every day for a week, people working with me on the film told me they hoped the matter would be resolved, and urged me to say what I could to make sure the film went ahead.”
Later Farhadi said the experience was reminiscent of what his character Sepideh in About Elly went through.
Eventually, Farhadi finished Separation, attracting global recognition. In addition to winning an Oscar, it won the Golden Globe Award for best foreign film.
Behind the scenes at Nader's Separation from Simin
Two years later, Farhadi made his first film outside Iran, The Past, which was filmed in France. The original was in French, not Persian. Although the film did not receive the same acclaim as About Elly and Separation, it was well received and screened at a number of international film festivals. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes and was given the Best Actress award at Cannes.
Farhadi made the film The Past in France
After The Past, Farhadi returned to Iran and made The Salesman, winning him his second Academy Award. Farhadi again positioned the audience in the role of moral judge. It met with global acclaim and won several awards, but in Iran, it caused a number of problems for the filmmaker. Iranian officials wanted to censor the voice of female singer Moluk Zarabi in line with the Islamic Republic’s ban on women singing in public. One newspaper ran a headline denouncing the film, dismissing it as a poor quality film about nothing of importance.
Then came Everybody Knows, starring Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz. The film, which was made in Spain, was never released in Iran, though it was presented as the closing film of the Cannes Film Festival. The film, along with The Past, confirmed that Farhadi was not simply an Iranian filmmaker: his talent, experience and understanding of the language of cinema placed him firmly on the international stage.
Farhadi's latest work, A Hero, which received the Cannes Film Festival Grand Jury Award, was screened in Iranian cinemas. Actor Amir Jadidi was also nominated for the best male actor.
"Actors learn to multi-task while working with Farhadi,” Peyman Maadi, who starred in Separation and About Elly, told Film Magazine and described the impact Farhadi had on the way actors approached dialogue.
Farhadi with Amir Jadidi and Sarina Farhadi
Farhadi made A Hero in Shiraz, and although he kept a low profile, and chose not to give interviews. But when the film was released it attracted so much attention that he did respond to comments and criticisms.
Farhadi is now so well known on a global level that his critics span across society. It’s no longer just film critics and magazines that have something to say about him — everyone has a view, from the most ardent supporters of the Supreme Leader to dissidents who want to overthrow the regime. It’s clear that because of this fame his personality is associated with so much more than cinema. He is an observer of Iran, but also of the world and human nature. His influence is such that all of us feel as if we’re in one of his creations, driven by his unique perspective and eye for what really shapes humanity.
Related coverage:
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Tehran, Washington, Cannes: Two Irans and a Very Strange Hour
Oscar Winner to Government Official: I Detest You!
Fajr Festival 2021: The Best Film Award Goes to Iran's Security Agencies, Again
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