Parallel Tales: Who observes whom when life begins to imitate fiction?
There is an idea often associated with Jiddu Krishnamurti that says, “the observer is the observed.” It is precisely on this border between who looks and who is looked at that Parallel Tales, by Asghar Farhadi, finds one of its most interesting questions. Because here, observing is never a completely passive act. From the moment someone looks at another’s life, interprets what they see, and transforms that reality into narrative, we are no longer just talking about observation. We are talking about interference.
Sylvie (Isabelle Huppert) is a writer in a creative crisis who practically never leaves her apartment in Paris. Surrounded by a chaotic house—almost like a visual extension of her own mind, something she herself verbalizes when she says that her head is a mess—she finds in the windows of the building across the street a possibility of returning to writing. With a small telescope, he secretly observes the lives of Anna (Virginie Efira), Theo (Pierre Niney), and Nicolas (Vincent Cassel) and begins to transform those people into raw material for his fiction.
But to what extent does that story really belong to them?
Farhadi constructs his script by revealing information little by little, mainly through dialogue, without turning each discovery into an explanation for the viewer. Gradually, small repetitions begin to provoke a sense of strangeness. Sylvie cuts her foot on a shard of glass; then, Anna also cuts herself. Sylvie comments that she doesn’t use microwaves because she believes they can cause cancer and prefers to heat everything in a double boiler; some time later, we hear practically the same idea coming from Anna.
Coincidence? Projection? Memory? Fiction?
It is at this moment that Parallel Tales begins to play in an even more interesting way with our perception. If Anna repeats Sylvie, perhaps what we are seeing is not exactly that woman’s life, but the writer’s own voice placed in another character. And the more Sylvie observes those windows, the more she seems to use real people to reconstruct something that belongs to her: her memories, her childhood, her parents, and even a past that perhaps needs to be reinvented to continue existing.
The cinematography accompanies this doubt. There is a perceptible difference between the two universes. Anna, Theo, and Nicolas initially appear enveloped in a cooler palette, while Sylvie, Adam, and Céline (Catherine Deneuve) inhabit slightly warmer tones. The distinction seems to function as a clue to separate reality and creation, present and memory. But Farhadi doesn’t take long to scramble what seemed so easily divisible.
And perhaps that’s precisely the point.
When Adam (Adam Bessa) enters Sylvie’s life, initially hired to help her with daily tasks, he also begins to enter her story. First as a curious observer, then as a reader, and finally as someone who begins to interfere in the narrative itself. Sylvie gains a companion for observation. Or perhaps a substitute.
Adam also becomes a voyeur.
But, starting from Sylvie’s unfinished manuscript, he begins to imagine his own version of those characters. The story ceases to belong exclusively to the one who began writing it. A new imagination means new possibilities and, consequently, a new perspective on those lives.
There is something very beautiful in the idea that a character only remains alive as long as there is paper, as long as the ink continues to give it existence. But what happens when that character was inspired by someone who exists on the other side of the window?
That’s when the classic question — does life imitate art or does art imitate life? — ceases to seem like just a philosophical provocation and begins to directly interfere with the structure of the film.
Sylvie and Adam look at life and transform it into art. Anna, Theo, and Nicolas, on the other hand, eventually come into contact with this art and begin to allow it to interfere in their own lives. Fiction is born from reality and then returns to modify it. One feeds the other until it becomes virtually impossible to discover which one came first.
And, in the midst of all this, where does privacy fit in?
Sylvie observes without being seen. Adam begins to observe with her. Anna, Theo, and Nicolas are observed until the moment they also begin to look back. The observer becomes observed, and what seemed like a one-sided relationship begins to function as a mirror. Perhaps no one can look at another for so long without ending up finding something of themselves.
This construction gains even more strength through sound, which in Parallel Tales practically assumes the position of a character. Not only because Anna, Theo, and Nicolas work precisely with the creation of sounds for cinema, but because Farhadi makes us pay attention to what would normally be absorbed almost unconsciously.
Sylvie’s keyboard, the noises of the street, small everyday sounds: everything gains a very concrete, almost plastic presence. And there is a particularly interesting irony in following characters who fabricate sounds to give veracity to a fiction while the film itself constantly questions what is true and what was fabricated. For many people, the sound of a film seems to simply exist. Parallel Tales draws attention precisely to the fact that it is also a construction.
Just like that story.
Perhaps that’s why one of the most interesting provocations comes from Adam: “Is it possible to be a writer without ever having written a line?” The question seems simple, but it carries another question behind it. Is it writing that transforms someone into a writer, or is it the ability to imagine? Does a story need to exist on paper to be real? And why does imagination bother so much when it begins to escape those who are supposed to control it?
For Anna, her own life is ordinary, even monotonous. For those who observe her from the window, however, it can be transformed into literature. Perhaps that is precisely the power—and also the danger—of imagination: to take an apparently banal existence, fill its empty spaces, and create a story where before there seemed to be none.
In Parallel Tales, no one remains only on one side of the window. Those who observe end up being observed. Those who inspire a story become affected by it. Those who write no longer completely control what they have written.
And when life and fiction begin to look at each other, perhaps discovering which one is imitating the other is no longer the most important thing.
PARALLEL TALES AT THE RIO FILM FESTIVAL
Parallel Tales is part of the Rio Film Festival program and will have four screenings, with the first two sessions featuring director Asghar Farhadi. The filmmaker will also participate in a free open lecture on October 3rd.
GALA SCREENING — with the presence of Asghar Farhadi
October 2nd, Friday | 7 PM
Cine Odeon — Luiz Severiano Ribeiro Cultural Center
OPEN CLASS WITH ASGHAR FARHADI
October 3rd, Saturday | 11 AM
Armazém Utopia
Admission is free for the public, with tickets distributed one hour before the scheduled time. Event subject to capacity.
SECOND SCREENING — with the presence of Asghar Farhadi
October 3rd, Saturday | 6:30 PM
Reserva Cultural Niterói 1
THIRD SCREENING
October 4th, Sunday | 9:45 PM
Kinoplex São Luiz 2
FOURTH SESSION
October 6th, Tuesday | 4 PM
Estação Claro Gávea 3
