Picture this: you are at the Cannes Film Festival, about to watch a film starring three of France’s most celebrated actors: Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Cassel and Isabelle Huppert. There is not an empty seat in the room, and an air of anticipation hangs over the audience as one of the festival’s official competition titles is about to begin.
Director Asghar Farhadi and his sibling and co-writer Saeed Farhadi loosely base their screenplay on the sixth chapter of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s acclaimed ten-part television project Dekalog. Parallel Tales opens abruptly, though effectively, with a woman’s wallet being stolen on the metro. A young man named Adam, played by Adam Bessa, chases after the thief and retrieves it. When the woman discovers he is unemployed and struggling financially, she offers him work helping her clear out the flat of her hoarder aunt Sylvie, played by Isabelle Huppert, so the property can be sold and the inheritance divided.
Sylvie is an author working on a manuscript inspired by the people employed at the sound studio opposite her apartment. Using a telescope in true Rear Window fashion, she watches them from afar, constructing elaborate fantasies and narratives about lives she knows nothing about. When her manuscript is rejected, Adam falsely claims he wrote the book himself and becomes increasingly obsessed with one of its central figures, Nita, also known as Anna, played by Virginie Efira. What begins as intrigue gradually spirals into melodrama, blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality and profoundly affecting everyone involved.
This feels markedly different from Farhadi’s previous work, as the director is primarily known for films set in Iran, whereas this story unfolds entirely in France. Farhadi is one of contemporary cinema’s most respected filmmakers, having won two Academy Awards alongside the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2021. The film’s greatest strength lies in its intricate narrative structure. It constantly keeps the audience engaged as it shifts between Sylvie’s fictionalised manuscript and the real lives of the sound studio workers, whose experiences slowly begin mirroring the events of the novel.
The performances are undoubtedly the Parallel Tales’ standout feature, which is hardly surprising given the calibre of the cast. Isabelle Huppert is exceptional, bringing elegance and depth even to a reclusive hoarder living amongst a mice infestation and scribbling ideas directly onto her wallpaper. What surprised me most, however, was how confidently the younger actors held their own alongside such revered performers. Bessa is outstanding, balancing secrecy, vulnerability, curiosity and quiet heroism with remarkable subtlety. Pierre Niney is equally captivating as Christophe/Theo, while Efira commands every scene she appears in. Their ability to shift seamlessly between the dual roles their characters inhabit is genuinely impressive.
The film inevitably recalls other works centred on voyeurism, including Hitchcock’s aforementioned masterpiece, The Conversation and Caché, yet it still manages to carve out its own identity. Despite these clear influences, it never feels derivative. My main criticism is that, despite its substantial runtime of two hours and twenty minutes, several characters remain frustratingly underdeveloped. They are simply dropped into the narrative with little context, and I found myself wishing for more insight into their histories and motivations. The characters are compelling enough to deserve richer backstories.
Still, Parallel Tales is absolutely worth watching. Its star-studded cast immediately draws you in, while its confident intertwining of fiction and reality keeps you absorbed throughout. I also appreciated its emphasis on sound design and the unseen craftsmanship behind filmmaking, an aspect of cinema that is too often overlooked by audiences.
★★★★
In UK cinemas soon / Virginie Efira, Isabelle Huppert, Vincent Cassel, Adam Bessa, Catherine Deneuve, Pierre Niney, India Hair / Dir: Asghar Farhadi / Palace Films (France)
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