INTERVIEW – Passing through Paris, smiling, always affable and with Olympian calm, Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi welcomes you like a friend. Packed with awards, the director ofA separation (2011) responds bluntly, and even firmly specifies his position as a filmmaker working in Iran.
LE FIGARO. – Your new film is called A hero. What do you think a hero is?
Asghar FARHADI. – I put in scene an unspecified man who, at a given moment, finds himself projected in full light. Very briefly, through a television report, he is highlighted and all eyes are on him to salute something he has done, and which is considered a good deed. This character then becomes a hero. In the film, I don’t ask myself the question of what a hero is, I rather seek to know why we need a hero …
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Who are your heroes in literature, cinema or theater?
I have no more! I had some. But I no longer have any, since I realized that at a certain point, taking someone as an absolute model was futile. Some people may have noble characteristics, admirable in certain aspects. But be indefensible on others. So there are people I admire, but I don’t have any heroes anymore.
What …
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