In 1983, Robert Bresson won the best-director award at Cannes for L Argent, his final, Tolstoy-inspired feature. It follows the journey of a counterfeit bill that acquires a metaphysical significance. The sin that began with the printing and passing of the bill never goes away; the banknote simply brings trouble wherever it travels.
Asghar Farhadi s A Hero, showing in competition, is not on the level of L Argent, but it is cut from the same thematic cloth. It s also his best film since A Separation, which won the foreign-language Oscar for 2011.
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All the problems in A Hero trace back to an instance of usury. The movie opens with Rahim (Amir Jadidi) being granted a two-day leave from the Iranian equivalent of debtors prison. We learn that Rahim had once borrowed money from a loan shark, and that Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), who considered Rahim family, repaid the debt with a bond check. Bahram has tried to recoup the money from Rahim ever since. Eventuall