Asghar Farhadi: Acknowledging Hybrid Traditions: Iran, Hollywood and Transnational Cinema

Abstract

Post-revolutionary Iranian cinema has been praised for its emotional immediacy and compositional simplicity. The work of Asghar Farhadi stands as an exception to this canon. His films focus on domestic conflicts and cultural contradictions in urban life and are marked by emotional complexity and intricate narrative structures. Focusing on these characteristics, critics have stressed his proximity to mainstream American cinema. The article analyses this proximity by discussing the thematic parallels that Farhadi's work enjoys with classical Hollywood films, as conceptualised by philosopher Stanley Cavell. The article explores the limit of this approach by connecting Farhadi's films to pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema, a body of work that, despite the little attention it has received, can nonetheless provide significant insights into Farhadi's oeuvre to date, whilst bringing to the fore the heterogeneous tradition of Iranian cinema.