I have this habit of searching for movies that are critically acclaimed (and here I must thank RottenTomatoes, Roger Ebert and Amazon user reviews) and then watch them. It has been many years since movie watching ceased to be merely for mindless entertainment. You can call me a movie buff or a movie fanatic (if my comments have irritated you enough!!). Anyway, this search becomes very frantic near the end of the year since many ‘Best of the year’ lists are out by this time. Then when the Oscars draw near, I try and ensure that I have covered as many of the nominated movies as possible before the actual ceremony, so that I have formed my own opinions about the movie before they are coloured by the awards announcement. I was looking at Roger Ebert’s best films of the year list and read about the Iranian movie called ‘A Separation’. I have watched about 3-4 movies from Iran and liked almost all of them. Ebert’s high praises and my own experience with Iranian movies prompted me to watch this one last week.
From what I have seen at least, most cinema from Iran have very simple plots. The pacing is not what you would see in Hollywood manufactured blockbusters like the super-hero movies, disaster movies or the Almighty-American-President-setting-out-to-save-the-world type of movies (although this has morphed in recent years to the Simple-American-saves-world-from-disaster type). The pace is languid, the people are ordinary, the stories are commonplace and the emotions – very real. As you must have already guessed, I found ‘A separation’ satisfying in all respects.
The film begins in a small court room where a couple – Nader and Simin are seated in front of a judge. They have been married for fourteen years and have a teenage daughter. They are in the court-room asking for a divorce. Simin, the wife wants to leave the country because she does not want her daughter to grow up there. Nader, on the other hand, wants to stay back on account of his old and ailing father, who is suffering from Alzheimers’s disease. Both of them have their reasons for wanting what they want. The judge thinks the issue is too trivial for a divorce and orders them out of the court. Simin moves out and goes back to her parents’ house, but not before helping Nader find a maid who will help him take care of his father. The maid Razieh is pregnant and takes up the job for the money, although she has to travel quite a distance to come to work. Razieh is also deeply religious and God-fearing. These points of the story take place within the first 10 minutes of the movie. There is a small incident in between, which gives rise to the central conflict of the movie (which, by the way, is not only about the divorce of a young couple). Nader, Simin, Termeh (their daughter) Razieh and Razieh’s husband – Houjat become the primary players in an emotional plot involving misunderstandings, mistakes and some minor secrets.
So what is so special about this story, you ask. Like in real life, there are no good or bad people. In fact, Asghar Farhadi – the writer and director of the movie has ensured that all the characters are sympathetic. No one is to be blamed. Whatever a character does, he/she does it out of good intention. But what may be good for one person, may turn out to be not so good for another. Termeh (the director’s daughter in real-life) is the moral compass of the story. She sees her father as a hero in the beginning and refuses to leave him for her mother, even though she knows that Simin is fighting this battle on Termeh’s behalf. But towards the end, Termeh (and we, the viewers) are not so sure any more. The moral standing of each character in our minds, keeps shifting and it is to the director’s credit that when the credits roll, we, like Termeh are not sure about what is right or wrong anymore.
A word about the cast. The acting is uniformly excellent. And I have to say, Iranians seem to be one of the most beautiful people in the world! The actor who plays Nadar resembles Pawan Malhotra, but looks younger and better. He did a great job of a playing a the role of a man with conflicting emotions. Same goes for the lady playing Simin. The girl playing young Termeh, plays her role with sincerity and in the end when she is tears, I was feeling a little emotional too. The actress playing Razieh needs a special mention. She internalized her religious nature, respect for her employer and refusal to take accusations about her honesty and emoted extremely well, without going over the top at any point. The kid playing Razieh’s young daughter is cute as a button and the kid can act too. Even the old man playing Nader’s father did a great job, although he had barely any lines to speak.
My mother loved the movie. Both of us were talking about how our movies today are becoming more and more about people who live nowhere, have problems that don’t happen to everyone and solve them like common people would never do!! You can interchange actors and would not notice any difference. There is no concept of place or culture etc., that would make these people real and relatable. And I am not talking about the Cine-Madurai movies in Tamil that have followed the success of ‘Subramaniapuram’ with youngsters chopping off heads like my road-side coconut vendor slices coconuts. That is not what I mean by real. Morality tales are becoming scarce in Indian movies. And by this I am not saying Hollywood movies are doing any better. Our stories had complex moral questions in the center of them before the attack of the NRI movies started. The character Razieh is one we do not find much in today’s movies from any country. Religion is used to show why a character behaves differently from the rest, or as a plot device to show fake national unity sequences etc., but rarely as a device that governs a person’s moral compass. And I saw that happen in a film after a long time.
There is supposedly a strong Oscar buzz surrounding this movie this year and I wish it wins one. I, for one, would highly recommend it to any kind of audience.
From what I have seen at least, most cinema from Iran have very simple plots. The pacing is not what you would see in Hollywood manufactured blockbusters like the super-hero movies, disaster movies or the Almighty-American-President-setting-out-to-save-the-world type of movies (although this has morphed in recent years to the Simple-American-saves-world-from-disaster type). The pace is languid, the people are ordinary, the stories are commonplace and the emotions – very real. As you must have already guessed, I found ‘A separation’ satisfying in all respects.
The film begins in a small court room where a couple – Nader and Simin are seated in front of a judge. They have been married for fourteen years and have a teenage daughter. They are in the court-room asking for a divorce. Simin, the wife wants to leave the country because she does not want her daughter to grow up there. Nader, on the other hand, wants to stay back on account of his old and ailing father, who is suffering from Alzheimers’s disease. Both of them have their reasons for wanting what they want. The judge thinks the issue is too trivial for a divorce and orders them out of the court. Simin moves out and goes back to her parents’ house, but not before helping Nader find a maid who will help him take care of his father. The maid Razieh is pregnant and takes up the job for the money, although she has to travel quite a distance to come to work. Razieh is also deeply religious and God-fearing. These points of the story take place within the first 10 minutes of the movie. There is a small incident in between, which gives rise to the central conflict of the movie (which, by the way, is not only about the divorce of a young couple). Nader, Simin, Termeh (their daughter) Razieh and Razieh’s husband – Houjat become the primary players in an emotional plot involving misunderstandings, mistakes and some minor secrets.
So what is so special about this story, you ask. Like in real life, there are no good or bad people. In fact, Asghar Farhadi – the writer and director of the movie has ensured that all the characters are sympathetic. No one is to be blamed. Whatever a character does, he/she does it out of good intention. But what may be good for one person, may turn out to be not so good for another. Termeh (the director’s daughter in real-life) is the moral compass of the story. She sees her father as a hero in the beginning and refuses to leave him for her mother, even though she knows that Simin is fighting this battle on Termeh’s behalf. But towards the end, Termeh (and we, the viewers) are not so sure any more. The moral standing of each character in our minds, keeps shifting and it is to the director’s credit that when the credits roll, we, like Termeh are not sure about what is right or wrong anymore.
A word about the cast. The acting is uniformly excellent. And I have to say, Iranians seem to be one of the most beautiful people in the world! The actor who plays Nadar resembles Pawan Malhotra, but looks younger and better. He did a great job of a playing a the role of a man with conflicting emotions. Same goes for the lady playing Simin. The girl playing young Termeh, plays her role with sincerity and in the end when she is tears, I was feeling a little emotional too. The actress playing Razieh needs a special mention. She internalized her religious nature, respect for her employer and refusal to take accusations about her honesty and emoted extremely well, without going over the top at any point. The kid playing Razieh’s young daughter is cute as a button and the kid can act too. Even the old man playing Nader’s father did a great job, although he had barely any lines to speak.
My mother loved the movie. Both of us were talking about how our movies today are becoming more and more about people who live nowhere, have problems that don’t happen to everyone and solve them like common people would never do!! You can interchange actors and would not notice any difference. There is no concept of place or culture etc., that would make these people real and relatable. And I am not talking about the Cine-Madurai movies in Tamil that have followed the success of ‘Subramaniapuram’ with youngsters chopping off heads like my road-side coconut vendor slices coconuts. That is not what I mean by real. Morality tales are becoming scarce in Indian movies. And by this I am not saying Hollywood movies are doing any better. Our stories had complex moral questions in the center of them before the attack of the NRI movies started. The character Razieh is one we do not find much in today’s movies from any country. Religion is used to show why a character behaves differently from the rest, or as a plot device to show fake national unity sequences etc., but rarely as a device that governs a person’s moral compass. And I saw that happen in a film after a long time.
There is supposedly a strong Oscar buzz surrounding this movie this year and I wish it wins one. I, for one, would highly recommend it to any kind of audience.
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