Breaking through the barriers
Family deals with an unfamiliar culture — but its powerful themes are instantly recognizable
A SEPARATION Starring: Leila Hatami, Peyman Moadi, Sareh Bayat, and Shahab Hosseini Directed by: Asghar Farhadi G: violence, coarse language, mature theme Running time: 123 minutes
There are many surprises in Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, but the one that feels the most astounding — for a westerner, at any rate — is the basic accessibility of the story.
Set in modern- day Tehran, this modest film about an educated couple struggling to find a balance amid conflicting priorities opens with a scene before a judge: Simin ( Leila Hatami) wants to separate from her husband Nader ( Peyman Moadi).
This could be Divorce Court, or Judge Judy, or any brand of reality TV that lets us eavesdrop and intrude on the domestic tangles of our next- door neighbours. Simin wants to leave Iran with her daughter Termeh ( Sarina Farhadi), but her husband Nader feels obligated to stay, so he can take care of his ailing father, debilitated by Alzheimers.
Each person has a valid reason for his or her respective decision, and neither one will budge, essentially propelling this increasingly dark drama forward. Despite the language, and the presence of head scarves, the scene is entirely recognizable, because Farhadi finds the universal thread of marital discord.
Aiding his cause in the opening sequence is the depth of acting ability from his two leads, who wear the tension of a dissolving marriage on their worn faces. They know they can’t reach each other, convince each other, or even love each other any more, but, without an outsider’s decision, they’re unable to move forward.
Simin and Nader are seeking a separation, but, over the next 90 minutes, the two will never be closer, or share more lifedefining events.
The cruel twists of fate take a while to snake through the frame, but Farhadi lets them flow without dramatic selfawareness or palpable foreshadowing. Life, it seems, just happens — forcing these two smart people to deal with a variety of profound dilemmas.
The plot- pushing problem is the divorce issue, and whether Nader will allow his wife to immigrate with their daughter, but this initial snag is quickly followed by an even bigger problem, when Nader finds himself facing assault and attempted murder charges.
Seeking help with his sick father, Nader hired a care attendant from a different class. When she abandons her patient, and Nader comes home to find his father on the floor, Nader loses his temper and forces the woman from his house.
There is a scuffle. It seems somewhat innocuous, but things quickly spiral out of control, as lies, suspicion and paranoia start seeping into the frame.
The balance of drama shifts from Nader and Simin’s marital stress to the gap between Iranian classes.
The caretaker and her husband do not have the same contemporary sensibilities as the semi- affluent Nader and Simin, and you can feel the tension. More traditional and fundamentally orthodox, Razieh ( Sareh Bayat) and Hodjat ( Shahab Hosseini) feel steeped in intangible resentment.
You can feel the itch and scratch of contempt in every scene where these two worlds collide, and what’s masterful about Farhadi’s execution is how he finds the same emotional timbre in every dynamic.
Contempt rumbles beneath every strip of celluloid, regardless of which particular part of the drama takes centre stage.
For viewers more familiar with Iran’s art- house movement, headlined by the likes of Jafar Panahi and Abbas Kiarostami, Farhadi’s chatty, even sudsy, drama may feel a little loud and cluttered by comparison, but it’s also a lot more human.
We can insert ourselves into this landscape, and imagine ourselves in the same shoes as Simin and Nader, which is the prime ingredient in any film’s success. Without identification, the whole exercise becomes hypothetical, which, in turn, feeds an intellectual hunger, but not an emotional one.
Farhadi feeds both with this highly intimate dissection of marital collapse, because it’s so specific and narratively sharp, it takes a razor’s edge to Iranian society without gutting it, or even judging it.
The movie pulls us along on an ever- darkening journey that pushes us to ask questions about our own interpretation of freedom and of faith.
Shot in verite style, with a single camera on a budget of less than $ 1 million US, A Separation offers us a different take on the Iranian everyday, and lets us see a world that bears a striking resemblance to our own.
The only real difference comes down to the concept of judgment, so craftily introduced to us in the first scene. In our western society, we judge others through myriad lenses that can touch on anything from the law and the Judeo- Christian ethic to our understanding of feminism or basic income bracket. But it’s all hidden.
In Tehran, the lines guiding behaviour are that much bolder, but the human condition remains the same, allowing Farhadi and his cast to shine a light on our culture’s blind spots, while opening our eyes to the ambiguity of his own.