Oscar voters are already quite familiar with Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi as are the festival goers in Cannes. Ten years ago, A Separation won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (as it was called at the time) and the pic was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. In 2016, The Salesman took the foreign film prize at the Oscars. Both The Salesman and his previous effort Everybody Knows held their debuts in the French Riviera.
Farhadi is back at Cannes with A Hero, his latest drama that looks to be another awards player. That could certainly happen. It stands at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and some posts indicate this is the kind of story that could take the Palme d’Or (the fest’s top honor). On the other hand, some of the thumbs up reviews point out that this isn’t in the league of Farhadi’s most lauded predecessors.
Bottom line: I would expect that Iran will submit A Hero as its selection for Oscar consideration. We will see how the competition plays out, but it definitely stands a decent chance at making the cut (while not being the sure thing that his others were). And there’s even a fair possibility that Farhadi could enter the Best Director conversation. A Palme d’Or victory wouldn’t hurt the cause. My Oscar Watch posts will continue…
