Critical Analysis of the Iranian Legal System in the Works of Asghar Farhadi

As the well-known Iranian filmmaker and winner of two awards for the Best Non-English Language Film from the Oscar Academy, Asghar Farhadi's cinema is known as a prominent example of 'Iranian social cinema.' It emerged during the early years of twenty first century as a movement born out of the duality of intellectual cinema and value-based cinema following the Iranian Revolution. Through his work, Iran's cinema faces its own identity and strives to explore the dialectic of government, rights, and ethics in the middle class. From this perspective, his movies have a rich relationship with Iran's legal system in both form and content. In Farhadi's movies, the legal system in Iran has a contradictory image that is thought-provoking, critical, gloomy, passive, yet pretentious. It interferes but proves ineffective, distorting individuals' freedoms, choices, and privacy while remaining incapable of providing justice and guaranteeing a peaceful life for citizens. According to Farhadi's perspective, instead of facilitating social life, the legal system becomes the primary factor in constructing a labyrinth of crises in Iranian society. The ideological rules, favoring one good over others and mobilizing resources and facilities towards that good, intentionally violate privacy boundaries with the aim of moral purification of citizens. This leads to a decline in collective morality, creates social condemnation towards dissidents and intellectuals, fosters increasing violence, erodes the language of dialogue, and causes social division. According to Farhadi's movies, the only way to overcome such divisions is by strengthening civil society, formulating impartial laws, decreasing government intervention in citizens' personal lives, prioritizing reconciliation over violence, practicing restorative justice, promoting honesty and integrity, and redefining concepts such as honor while rectifying inappropriate traditional culture.