A Hero Ending Explained: A Hero By Asgar Farhadi Meaning And Explanation?

The ending of A Hero is one of the most beautiful and memorable scenes you will see in cinemas in 2022. On the other hand, its creator – Iranian director Asgar Farhadi – is the only living person to have won two Oscars in the Best International Film category and he is universally known as one of the best filmmakers of the present. After a few less than brilliant films and a disappointing debut in Spanish (Everyone knows), in 2021 Farhadi won the grand jury prize at Cannes with A hero: an amazing film, one of the best of his filmography.

The film tells the story of Rahim, an Iranian man who is serving his sentence in prison for accumulating unpaid debts (a crime punishable by incarceration in the Middle Eastern country). During a 2-day leave, Rahim comes into possession of a bag full of gold coins. If he sold them, he could repay part of his debt and reduce or cancel the sentence still to be served. At the last, however, the man is seized by a scruple of conscience and tries to find the legitimate owner of the bag. When the news leaks in newspapers and media, Rahim is presented as a selfless hero, a model man.

The notoriety, however, will become a catalyst for doubts, slanders and further headaches for Rahim, for the woman he loves and for his family, with a dramatic crescendo that will lead to the film’s memorable ending.

What It Really Means To Be A Hero According To Farhadi?

Ultimately, the film is a profound reflection on the true meaning of heroism and human morality. Rahim’s case is analyzed in detail, exploring the enormous complexity of conscious and subconscious motivations that led him to make the seemingly disinterested gesture of looking for the legitimate owner of the bag full of gold coins and returning the lost money.

Farhadi certainly does not want to point the finger or imply that Rahim is not a good man because some of his motives are not so crystal clear. Indeed, the director aims to show the complexity of the reasoning, the reasons and the feelings of all the people involved in a seemingly banal affair. Neither Rahim’s creditor nor the woman who lost and found the purse are inherently bad, quite the opposite. If anything, the film analyzes the mechanisms through which, faced with an apparently heroic gesture, people tend to be wary and suspicious and how it loses value in their eyes if placed in a context in which those who have done it show shortcomings or defects.

The closure of the film is emblematic and very powerful. Rahim’s gesture does not save him from prison or from his sins, which he has shown that he has not yet fully atoned for. Rahim’s real heroic and disinterested act is to return sadly to prison to finish his sentence, giving up the dream of a job and an annulment of the sentence. Rahim accepts his fate, finally aware of his faults.

Farhadi creates a beautiful final scene in which we see the man present himself at the prison guardhouse to complete the paperwork relating to his return to his cell. At the same time, on the right side of the screen, through the open door we see an inmate who comes out of prison and embraces his beloved woman again, in a riot of joy and emotion. The scene alludes to the fact that Rahim will be able to do the same in the future, but his atonement is not yet over because he has not yet really learned from his mistakes, as evidenced by the bad episode that occurred in his creditor’s shop.

How Does A Hero Of Asgard Farhadi End?

Rahim returns to prison to serve his sentence and thus pay off the unpaid debts to his creditor. As he is entering the prison gatehouse to complete the paperwork related to returning from leave, on the right side of the shot we see a prisoner leaving the building and hugging his family again. The contrast between her joy and Rahim’s silent sadness is Farhadi’s perfect lockdown for her story.

What Does The Final Scene Of Asgar Farhadi’s A Hero Mean?

Farhadi contrasts the happiness of a prisoner who has finished serving his sentence and can hug his family back with the sadness with which Rahim returns to prison to serve the time left by the sentence.

This contrast alludes to the fact that Rahim has not yet atoned for his guilt, as well as not yet completed his time in prison. The story of the gold coins has revealed how man has yet to fully admit his guilt and therefore atone for it. However, it also suggests how in the future he can be the happy ex-prisoner, overcoming his mistakes and starting his life again.