جدایی نادر از سیمین
Country of Origin: Iran
Primary Audio Language: Persian
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Film Length: 2h 3m
Synopsis: A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.
Star Rating: ★★★★★
Review: I was fully unprepared for the greatness of this moving taking place in present-day Iran. As I studied the Middle East for a long time as part of my work, and have held a deep respect for the resiliency of the people in the many countries there because of that, I knew I wanted to include at least one film from the region, but had never seen any actually produced there before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, and ‘A Separation’ completely blew me away.
This is a deeply emotional and fascinating drama that depicts the fractured relationship between a couple trying to navigate their opposing views under the inflexible application of Islamic law. This film doesn’t come off as anti-Islamic law, specifically, but as more of a criticism of theocracies in general, and the effects the politics of sex and class that it focuses on paints a familiar picture for American audiences- a society divided by sex, generation, religion and class, showing that modern Iranian families aren’t so different than our own.
It begins with Simin and Nader meeting a family court judge, appealing for a divorce. Simin wants her and Nader to leave Iran, to give their daughter better opportunities, but Nader doesn’t want to leave his father, who has Alzheimer’s behind. In a poignant and heartbreaking exchange, Simin argues with Nader, “but he (his father) doesn’t even know you!” to which he replied, “no, but I know him.” When the judge denies this disagreement is grounds for a divorce, Simin and takes their daughter and moves into her mother’s
apartment.
When his Simin leaves, Nader is presented with an immediate dilemma– with no wife in the picture, who is to do the woman's work of cleaning and looking after his father? Displeased with his “modern wife,” who has her own career and wants to go her own way, he seeks out someone who can perform the duties of a traditional wife, and hires Razieh, a poor woman, to be a caregiver for his father.
Razieh is married to a strict Muslim, Hodjat, who would never allow her to work in a man’s house without his wife present, so she keeps her job a secret from him. As the movie progresses, it reveals a deep pervasive sadness in its depiction of national alienation in Iran, seeming to well up and seep through each of the characters. Terrible things happen in a succession of unintended consequences.
Nader returns home one day to find his father tied to the bed and Razieh absent. She had a good reason for this, but that doesn’t become clear until later. He fires her, and she accuses him of pushing her downstairs and causing a miscarriage. Hodjat sues Nader for manslaughter.
While there are some parts of the film that are slower and tedious, I found it impossible to turn off. New details are added, scene after scene, that changes the moral perspective until there are no clear villains or heroes, as is usually the case in real life. Instead, each character is doing what they think is right, and is equally wrong. They are all caught in a web of pride and ego, morality and religion, money and honor. It is a rigorously honest movie about the difficulties of being honest, a film that tries to be truthful about the slipperiness of truth.
Available On: Amazon Prime, for purchase
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