The film “Hero”, written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, tells the story of a young man named “Rahim” who is played by “Amir Jadidi” brilliantly. Rahim has divorced his wife and has a teenage son who stutters. He is in prison because of a 70,000 tomans debt to his former boss and bankruptcy – which has become a normal occurrence in our society in recent years. “Farokhondeh”, an elderly woman who has become acquainted with Rahim, finds 17 gold coins and offers to sell them and pay off his debt to his creditor so he can be released.

One of the beautiful messages of the film that touches the heart is the story of a girl named Farokhondeh. She is past the age of marriage and in order to find a partner and a support in life, she seeks refuge with Rahim, a bankrupt prisoner, and says she is willing to give her life for him, even though she only has 17 coins. Farokhondeh is a reflection of a major problem in our traditional society, where many young girls are unable to form a life due to poverty and misfortune. This is happening while our society is not modern enough to easily accept young single women who live on their own. In fact, women are expected to get married, even though many are not in a position to do so.

Rahim has been released from prison on furlough to attend to the ups and downs of his life. The price of gold has dropped and 17 coins are not enough to cover all of Rahim’s debts. On the other hand, Rahim feels guilty for not taking possession of someone else’s property and is determined to find the owner of the coins and return their belongings to them.

The trap begins and everyone wants to make up for their own losses, so everyone gets involved in their own way. The prison officials offer Rahim a deal to lie, and as soon as he agrees to their offer and lies, he is forced to continue lying in other places out of desperation, to all those who have supposedly come to help Rahim but in reality have come to benefit from this situation – from the prison officials to the charity organization that is supposed to collect donations from the generous to pay off Rahim’s remaining debts, and so on – a chain of lies. This is happening while Rahim is not a liar, but the social conditions he lives in force him to lie. In fact, the culture of coercion in society and the weak and corrupt beliefs of the people around Rahim repeatedly force him to lie; they themselves later wonder why Rahim lied. In the end, he, who spent a few days as a hero, returns to prison as a lying, violent,

Farhadi wants to say that these are the societal conditions in which Rahim is trapped. Farhadi does not say it, but the reality of our society today is that a person can become a billionaire overnight, but they can also end up sitting in the streets. This society has people whose lives are governed by very little law, logic, and reason, and it is usually their emotions and passions that shape their lives. If the director has not been successful in explicitly stating this, the professional audience will still receive this message from the film.

This is the burnt land of Iran, where we live, its people do not distinguish between hero and anti-hero, and for this reason, neither hero has a place or a base there, nor can one become a hero in it.

The historical and cultural roots of this great and painful void have not yet been explored, but what is clear is that the society lacks an independent identity and its people are lost and without identity. In our wounded society’s culture and beliefs, there have been centuries of anti-heroes filling the place of real heroes in the minds and mouths of the masses. In the society we are trapped in, it is not possible to live correctly and honestly, nor does heroism have a place or foundation. Religious and spiritual teachings and prohibitions have no correlation with the tangible reality of human life and are in fact in strong contradiction with it. In this valley of endless discrimination and contradiction that has tainted the entirety of society, distinguishing between courage and foolishness is thinner than a hair and distinguishing between showing love and violence and deceit and hypocrisy is not an easy task. Here, there is no standard for distinguishing between right and wrong, hero and anti-hero, servant and traitor.

It is chaos and confusion that has its roots in the long centuries of the dark and sinister fate of these people; so many traitors dressed as heroes have taken hold of our minds, culture, and beliefs, that there is no place left for a true servant and hero.

Everything in our society today is surrounded by a halo of ignorance, fabrication, darkness, superstition, lies, deceit, backwardness, ambiguity, foolishness, and the inability to distinguish between good and bad. It has engulfed and buried a great deal of truth to the point that we cannot see what is right in front of us. Everything has been distorted and manipulated in the beliefs of these people, causing destruction to truth and honesty. These painful and agonizing sufferings of humanity in our society are not only limited to today and yesterday, but their roots go back to centuries ago; centuries in which they dragged us into ignorance through religion and superstition, and presented everything to us as lies and distortions, defining bad as good and good as bad.

In a society where the scent of rationality and logic has not been fought, undoubtedly there will be no place for a hero. But the other big and unanswered question is who is the hero? It is what Farhadi wants to portray in his film, but due to the complexity and extent of censorship and self-censorship in Iran, he is helpless and does not lead to anywhere. In this film, he only focuses on portraying the disabled and does not deal with the causes, but in reality, the director may use the disabled as an excuse for his work to continue, perhaps out of compulsion – not ignorance.

What is seen in the story of the film is that throughout the film, all the elements come together to help the hero defeat the anti-hero and heal the ancient and chronic wound of our poor and backward Iranian society. If we do not think about fixing it, it will continue to plague generations to come and the same soup will be served in the same bowl. The story of the film concretely expresses the bitter reality that under the skin of Iranian religious and traditional society, there is an ancient and thousands of years old wound that has infected all aspects of society. The behavior and actions of the characters in the film – and in other words, the elements of society – clearly show that whenever this dirty wound is touched, its stench fills the air and affects the entire body of society. Farhadi is also well aware that the ancient wound of superstition and tradition is not easily curable. He is the only narrator of the thousands of disabled people who have taken the society by the throat

The whole film is inevitably about the bitter and dark reality of our society, and Farhadi has been able to say that the society we live in has no independent identity and has a long way to go to achieve the soft and advanced civilizations of today’s humanity.