Severe Disagreement Over Asghar Farhadi

According to SAEDNEWS, the film “Parallel Stories” by Asghar Farhadi, despite featuring star actors, has ranked at the bottom of the critics’ poll with an average of 1.7 stars; while the range of ratings from zero to four stars shows a deep disagreement among critics.

On one side, Robbie Collin from The Telegraph and Mathieu Macheret from Le Monde both gave the film zero stars (poor). On the other side, NT Binh (a well-known critic from Positif in France) gave it 4 stars, and Ahmed Shawky from Ciné-Fan gave it 3 stars. Other critics also gave ratings of 1 and 2 stars.

So far in the festival, and according to a table updated up to day four, the film “Fatherland” by Paweł Pawlikowski is in first place with an average score of 3.3 out of 5, while “Suddenly” by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and “Nagi’s Notes” by Koji Fukuda are ranked next with scores of 3.1 and 2.5 respectively.

“Parallel Stories”, with a runtime of 2 hours and 20 minutes, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14 and has also started screening in French cinemas.

The synopsis of the film “Parallel Stories” states: Sylvie is seeking inspiration for her new novel and begins observing the neighbors across from her. Meanwhile, a young man named Adam enters Sylvie’s life to help her personal situation. At first everything seems fine, but the relationships between Sylvie, Adam, and the neighbors evolve in a way that makes the fictional world of Sylvie’s novel overtake reality.

The 79th Cannes Film Festival is being held from May 12 to May 23 (May 22 to June 2).