Asghar Farhadi, the acclaimed Iranian auteur known for his European-influenced style reminiscent of Antonioni and Haneke, returns to France with his latest film, Parallel Tales. This intriguing middleweight meta-drama explores betrayal and the supposed link between voyeurism and creativity, asking whether writers spy on the characters they bring to life. The film is a riff on Kieślowski's A Short Film About Love with a twist of Hitchcock's Rear Window, spinning a complex web that is intricate and elaborate, though somewhat nebulous.
Plot and Characters
Isabelle Huppert stars as Sylvie, a cantankerous fading writer living alone in chaotic squalor in her messy Paris apartment. She rattles out novels on her Olivetti electric typewriter, refusing to embrace modern laptops. Her latest work is inspired by spying with a telescope on the people in the flat opposite: Nicolas (Vincent Cassel), who runs a sound effects production facility with Nita (Virginie Efira) and Théo (Pierre Niney). While Nicolas works the digital mixing desk, Nita and Théo fabricate lo-fi noises like footsteps and rustling undergrowth for a silent film.
Sylvie constructs an autobiographical story about her father using the same telescope to spy on her mother's lover, who lived in the apartment now occupied by Nicolas and his team. She imagines this lover is the old man who has died, leaving the apartment empty and vulnerable to furtive entry. Fascinated by the intimacy of Nicolas, Théo, and Nita, Sylvie dreams up a steamy tale of furtive sexual passion and murder à trois, which unfolds as a parallel drama on screen.
Cameo and Conflict
Her agent, played in a cameo by Catherine Deneuve, is unimpressed by the novel and infuriates Sylvie by comparing it to Georges Simenon. Simenon, incidentally, might have advised Farhadi that the film did not need to last two hours and 20 minutes. But fate upends Sylvie's life when her concerned niece (India Hair) hires Adam (Adam Bessa), an ex-con going straight, to clean the flat. Adam develops a dangerous obsession with Sylvie's novel and the people who inspired it, showing the manuscript to Nita and causing fiction to fatally contaminate real life.
Themes and Execution
The film takes its time reaching a suspenseful dramatic point, and its prolixity may stem from Farhadi seeking more than high-concept Simenon thrills. Yet it remains intriguing, acted with conviction, and offers food for thought about fake overdubs essential for creating reality. The sound effects serve as a metaphor for the construction of truth in art and life.
