The night before this movie screened was my wife’s 30th birthday, so it was a night full of celebrations and getting to bed very late. “A Separation” was screening at 11am the following morning and my next film after it wasn’t until 4pm. I was so close to passing on this film and having the extra sleep, but due to my love of Iranian films and the fact that they are incredibly hard to see outside of festival screenings, I forced myself to get up and see it, and I am so glad that I did. “A Separation” absolutely blew me away, it is an absolutely stunning film, easily the best of the festival so far, and I honestly cannot see anything else beating it.
The film opens with a married couple, Nader and Simin, facing the courts because the wife (Simin) wants a divorce. Even though she declares that Nader is a good man, she sees no option but divorce, because she wants to leave Iran with her daughter, Termeh, in an attempt to give her a better life, but Nader refuses to leave his Alzheimer-stricken father behind. The two separate, but the daughter decides to live with her father (knowing full well that her mother would never leave Iran without her). With his wife gone, Nader must find someone to look after his dad during the hours he is at work, and he ends up hiring a lower-class woman (who also happens to be pregnant) for the job. The woman, Razieh, finds the work incredibly hard to do, especially because the old man has started soiling himself, and she has religious issues to deal with in changing and cleaning the man.
One day when Nader and his daughter Termeh return home, they find that Razieh is nowhere to be found, she has left the house. When they get to Nader’s father’s room, they find him on the floor close to death with one of his arms tied to the bed. They quickly pick him up and get some oxygen into him, saving his life, when soon after Razieh returns from wherever she has been. A fight breaks out between Nader and Razieh due to her absence and the state the old man was found in, and eventually Nader forcibly removes her from his house.
The next day he finds out that Razieh is in hospital and that she has had a miscarriage. With his wife Simin, Nader goes to the hospital, where there is a violent confrontation between Nader and Hodjat, Razieh’s husband. Soon after that, Nader is charged with murder (because the baby was far enough along in the pregnancy to be considered a human) as Razieh claims she only lost her baby after she was pushed out of his apartment and falling on his stairs. Nader responds in turn by charging Razieh for tying his sick father up.
The rest of the film has Nader trying to prove his innocence of the crime, along with the fact that he didn’t even know that Razieh was pregnant to begin with (thus cannot be accountable for what happened to the baby). It is actually less about him proving his innocence, it is more about trying to find out the truth of the whole situation. The situation continues to get more volatile as Hodjat gets increasingly agitated and warns everyone to not make him do something that he will regret.
As I said at the start, this is an amazing film. The script (written by the director Asghar Farhadi) is stunning in its complexity as it deals with moral issues, religious issues, truth and perceptions of truth, as well as class in Iranian society. The whole thing sort-of plays out like a thriller because little details from earlier in the film end up having big repercussions later. Simple conversations you think mean nothing hold valuable information in determining what is the truth. The best part of the script is that it all feels so natural, like the thing had been ad-libbed, and it never feels like things are just put in to service the plot and move it forward. It feels like you are experiencing all of this as it happens, I suppose almost like a documentary. It has been a long while since I have seen a script as tight as this.
One aspect of the film that I love is that Nader is very big on the truth, and telling the truth. Even when a monetary deal is worked out between the families that would make the whole situation go away, he refuses it, on the grounds that he knows that he is innocent and wants that truth to come out. However he is forced into the dilemma of lying about a small detail in an attempt to prove the greater truth. That is quite a complex question being asked which is, does the ultimate truth mean less, when you have to lie to get there? Nader truly is a stubborn character as even when his family is being threatened, he still would prefer his innocence be proved of the charge, rather than paying off the other family. He even tells Termeh at one stage that if she believes that he is guilty, he will go along with the deal. She believes in her father’s innocence even though she knows he lied about a certain fact, and in turn she herself lied about the same thing to protect him, which troubles her. The two have a heartbreaking scene near the end of the film when Termeh says to her father “you said it wasn’t serious” (echoing a scene earlier in the film) to which he responds with “It got serious”. Termeh breaks down after hearing this knowing there is a chance that she could lose her father.
Another aspect I liked was that although the families were fighting and arguing, when they were together, the kids from each family (I failed to mention that Razieh and Hodjat had another little girl that Razieh would take with her to work) would play together which I thought was an interesting juxtaposition. In fact it should be mentioned that neither family is portrayed as a villain throughout, both families have the right to be angry with the other and both probably deserve some form of compensation but they continue to butt heads.
The whole acting ensemble of “A Separation” won the Best Actor and Best Actress award at the recent Berlin Film Festival, where it also won the Golden Bear for Best Film. Apparently this is the first time in the history of the festival that one film has taken away three awards, but they are all well deserved, especially the acting award. It was smart to award it to the entire ensemble because everyone is perfect and they all feed off one another. As I mentioned earlier, it all just feels so real and like it is happening in the present. I also must make mention of Leila Hatami, who plays Simin, and who is absolutely stunningly gorgeous.
Since I viewed this film, I realized that the director, Asghar Farhadi, had previously made another Iranian film that I loved called “About Elly”, that was my third favourite film at MIFF in 2009, so I will definitely be looking out for future films (and past ones too) from this amazing director.
Overall, this is a brilliant film whose greatest strength is in its complexity within a simple story. Although it is made in Iran, it is a very human story that I think most people could find something to relate with. If you have ever been to the film festival before, you may know that us cinema nerds have this strange ritual of clapping at the end of each film, almost as if we have to. For “A Separation” it was totally different. As soon as the credits began, the cinema erupted into applause, not because we felt he had to, but because as a collective, we all knew that we had seen something special. It was simply an amazing sensation for a spectacular film, and for the first time in about three years, I’m giving “A Separation” a perfect five stars.
5 Stars.
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