Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose Spanish film Todos lo saben (Everybody Knows) opened at the Festival de Cannes on Tuesday, hoped that Jafar Panahi, fellow Iranian and competitor for the Palme D’Or, would be able to make it to the festival this year. “There is still time. I hope he will be able to come,” Mr. Farhadi said at a press conference. He added that he found it strange that he was able to reach the festival when Mr. Panahi couldn’t and hoped that he would continue with his work despite the adversities.
It was the first time that Cannes opened with a film by a director from West Asia and there are a record five entries from the region in the main competition, including two from Iran.
There have been rumours in the French Riviera about Mr. Panahi, currently under house arrest in Iran, being given a reprieve to come in for a quick 48 hours visit.
However, it may prove to be just as tricky as in 2011, when Mr. Panahi’s documentary This is Not a Film was smuggled on a USB stick inside a cake for a special screening at the festival.
Meanwhile, Mr. Farhadi, who seems to have made the whole world his home and playground, ever since his About Elly won the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, admitted that though it is always difficult to make a film in a different language — Spanish in this case — his focus was on what is common across cultures.
“Human beings are not very different. Love, hatred, anger are felt in all the four corners of the world though the modes of expression might be different,” he said. He insists on dwelling on these commonalities to show people back at home in Iran how close they are to the rest of the world.
‘Oriental soul’
Mr. Farhadi also spoke of the “Oriental soul” of his new film, about the Abbas Kiarostami like disappearance of the creator from his creation so that the film gets foregrounded and talks directly to its audience.
Though Mr Farhadi remains faithful to his oeuvre in his latest outing, he admitted that the script and setting for Everybody Knows were chosen specifically with Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz in mind.
As in his other films, the family continues to be the focus, the frame of domesticity stays even though the cultural context changes. There is one disruptive act that throws things asunder with the woman at the receiving end of it.
Mr. Farhadi builds on the tension, as he has in film after film — A Separation, The Past and The Salesman . However, what is of consequence is what the act does to the relationships — how it tears the family apart.
An element of thrill
Mr. Farhadi spoke of the thriller element in his films as one of the many dimensions, a means to deal with the important issues and dilemmas.
In this case, the ideas of belonging and ownership and the theme of paternity — is it the biological father who matters more or the one who raises the daughter. And above all the idea of time; he admitted being obsessed with it — how all that awaits in the future emerges from the consequences of the past.
The finale in his films might be about seeming resolutions but behind them lie continual renegotiations and a constant state of flux. Mr. Farhadi spoke about the open endings in his films as the “beginning of another beginning”.
But eventually the broader format of Everybody Knows turned out to be very soap opera like, with an awkwardly handled revelation and emotional manipulation. It divests the film of the characteristic solidity, denseness and complexity of Mr. Farhadi’s previous works.
