HE to critic friend after 6:45 pm screening of Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Lives: “So whadja think?”
Critic friend to HE: (Making thumbs-down gesture) “Boring. Totally bored. Too long.”
HE: “But it’s a really honest examination of what writers do, I thought…an exercise in naked self-portraiture. An admission that writers do whatever the fuck they can — imagine anything, steal ideas, stalk women, use others, play dishonest emotional games — in order to create a good story or write a good screenplay. Farhadi is admitting ‘this is who I am, what I am.’ And in this sense, it’s really bold.”
Critic friend: “It’s boring. All apartment interiors, two or three cafe scenes, two Paris Metro scenes…all talk. I kept wanting it to end, and time and again it refused to.”
HE: “I realize it’s visually self-limiting because it’s almost all dialogue, but I wasn’t bored at all. I was totally hooked because it’s kind of Rear Window-ish, and because it keeps you guessing as to where the narrative is going.”
Critic: “Great. Good for you.”
HE: “Too much dialogue? What were you looking for, a car chase or something?”
Critic: “I’m just tired of films that are basically just MCUs of people talking and talking. Cinema is changing. I want more than just dialogue.”
HE: “You’re tired of dialogue? God, you sound like a video game guy!”
Critic: “I was bored…sorry. I wanted more.”
I’m almost all alone on this one. Almost everyone I’ve read or spoken to disagrees. The dismissal of this obviously different, indisputedly ambitious, unusually told tale of serpentine plot threads, switching narratives, covert agendas and discreet fake-outs is unmistakable.
When the credits began rolling at the end of Thursday night’s Salle Debussy screening, faint clapping could be heard but the sound of silence easily dominated.
I’m not saying the naysayers are wrong, but they seem to be ignoring the self-portraiture aspect. Farhadi cast Adam Bessa, a 34-year-old French Tunisian actor who bears a certain resemblance to Farhadi, as Adam, the film’s central protagonist / instigator. It’s not a stretch to regard Bessa as some kind of Farhadi stand-in.
I’ll try to fill in some of the blanks tomorrow, but it’s 12:30 am and I have to attend an 8:30 am screening, not to mention be up and sharp by 6:50 am.
There can be no disagreement that the 49 year-old Virginie Efira is, right now, easily the most fetching, Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot-level, middle-aged actress on the planet earth. Zaftig is beautiful.
