Asghar Farhadi Says Films Like ‘Argo’ Perpetuate American White Savior Myth: ‘Who Asked You To Come and Save Us?’

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Twice Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, who is at the Rio Film Festival to present “Parallel Tales,” spoke about the perceived hegemony of American cinema and how Hollywood shouldn’t be seen as a source for faithful portrayals of foreign cultures.

Asked about “Argo” winning Best Picture just a year after “A Separation” won Best International Film at the Oscars, Farhadi said he watched the film at the time it came out and felt it was a “Hollywood thing.” In the film, director Ben Affleck plays a Latino exfiltration specialist who masquerades as a Hollywood producer to rescue six Americans held captive in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran. The moderator mentioned how Affleck’s film portrays Iran “like you’re in hell.”

“The problem with these kinds of films in Hollywood [and] some people in the United States [is that] they look at the world from up to down,” he added. “Someday you should ask them: Why do you feel you’re up and we’re down? I don’t understand why they have this ego that they’re up.” The Iranian director then said Americans often claim to “have democracy,” but they don’t. “You don’t have democracy. It’s a lie.”

Farhadi then recalled spending time in the U.S. a few years ago when working on a project and, during research, travelling to San Francisco to speak with incarcerated men. “I met some people in prison who are Black, [some who come] from other countries, and the real America was there. But people in the world don’t see that part of the United States.”

“I have this problem when they feel they are up and they think, ‘[others] should be like us,’” he continued. “Even if it’s in a good way and they want to be kind to you, they wish ‘one day you’ll become like us,’ and no, I don’t want to.”

Still on “Argo,” the director said movies like it “are not deep.” “They make these movies for money; it’s a business. And in these films it’s always a white guy from the United States saving others. My question is: Why? Why does an American go to Cuba or Iran to save people? People understand they can save themselves. Who asked you to come and save us?”

Asked about how he broaches politics in his films, the renowned filmmaker said that, whenever “you talk about society, you are talking about politics.” “Even when you talk about family life, their relationships, their difficulties and problems, indirectly you are talking about politics. In my films, I always try not to talk about politics directly because, to me, that is a bit far from cinema. The cinema that I believe is the kind of cinema that gives space to audiences to discover things about themselves.”

The director then brought up Abbas Kiarostami’s “Fellow Citizen” (“Hamshahri”) as Iran’s “most political film.” The 1983 documentary heavily trails drivers across the streets of the Iranian capital. “He made a documentary about car drivers in Tehran, but when you see people, the way they talk to the police, the layers are very political.”

“Media and cinema don’t give you a complete image of people’s ordinary life,” he added. “But the thing about empathy is that, all around the world, people are similar to each other. Cinema is based on hate and love. And [when it comes to] hate and love, everywhere is the same. A love between a mother and child in Brazil, in Tehran, is the same. The way they express it is different, but the core is the same.”

Farhadi said that when he watches a Brazilian film, he soon forgets he is watching a story from another place in the world, and feels it is a “film about us” as people. “If one day people can travel to other countries, and if they shake hands, that’s the best way to know people, not through media. I don’t believe media can give us the whole image.”

On this, the filmmaker emphasized how his last two films, “A Hero” and “Parallel Tales,” are about how we see others and how we are seen in return. They are also heavily influenced by “how social media has shaped our lives.”

“When we see something in the media, we should be careful,” he continued, adding that most information replicated by mainstream media about Iran, for example, comes from “very simple knowledge” of real life in the country. When a singular discourse is perpetuated, the director implied, it means people are “ready to accept” when someone says “they are the enemy.” “This is something the media is doing, because the most powerful media belongs to powerful people. This is the problem.”

Farhadi spoke very briefly about his next film, reiterating it will be shot in his native language of Farsi. Enquired as to whether the film might deal with the current war in Iran and the conflict in Palestine, the director said: “Not directly,” suggesting the current political climate might have an underlying effect on the story despite not being the subject of his project.

“The Salesman” helmer also recalled how “Parallel Tales” was supposed to be shot in the U.S. “I stayed there for three years, writing, searching, casting. I did casting in the U.S. with American actors, very big names. But every day that I came back to my home, I told myself: I cannot connect with this. Something is wrong. It was a big problem. One night I decided to change.”

He said changing the film’s settings to France and moving production overseas was “not an easy decision,” but that “the DNA of this film is more European than American.”

As for the starry cast that includes Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira and Vincent Cassel, the director said he sent the script to “select names” upon arriving in France, and he was “so lucky” because all of them immediately said yes. Still, when he goes to set, he doesn’t “think about names.” “All of them are my team, my family, my actors. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big name or not. The way I work is the same, and they like it.”