A Separation Reviews

Hearing how highly regarded A Separation was among my IMDb friends, I knew I had to see it. My only question is how on earth did it take so long for me to do so? I can only put it down to being behind with my film watching because of uni, because A Separation is a fantastic film and deserves all ounces of praise it gets and some. That is my opinion though, because I know people will find that it is not their cup of tea and have no problem with that. What was it I loved about A Separation? A lot of things actually. It was a very well made film. The scenery is striking and authentic, and the cinematography is intrusive and relentlessly, but this adds to the impact of the story rather than detracts from it. Asghar Farhadi's direction similarly is supremely controlled. A Separation is remarkably written as well. The writing is intelligent and insightful, avoiding any kind of melodrama or moralising. Not just that but it succeeds also in exploring the characters without any kind of prejudice, and that is including Hodjat. The story is quite a complicated set-up, but compelling and moving. It gives the audience time to breathe, but with the tension and drama that fuels what is happening in the storytelling I found myself never being able to look away. The characters are sensitively explored, and while I've not seen About Elly in a while I do remember that I didn't relate as much to the characters there than I did here. The acting is wonderful, Leila Hatami(especially good), Peyman Moadi, Shahab Hosseini and Sareh Bayat give performances that wholly justified the sharing of the Silver Berlin Bear. One mustn't forget Sarina Farhadi, whose increasing intensity in her acting is what makes A Separation's storytelling and the case it depicts even more engrossing. In conclusion, one of the best of 2011, considering how hit and miss that year was for films that's saying a bit. 10/10 Bethany Cox

From the opening minutes of A Separation we are thrown into the deep end of the film’s emotionally bruising and complicated morass. The simplest of domestic squabbles can so easily spin out into messy situations that grow exponentially and drag in surrounding players. What starts as a simple impasse between a married couple soon involves a lower-class family and a thorny legal battle.

 

But how do we get there? That’s the pleasure and engaging emotional tournament that A Separation pulls us through. It is a masterpiece of taking the old adage of the “frog in the slowly boiling pot” and applies it to the narrative and character journeys.

 

Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Moaadi) are a married couple at a roadblock in their relationship. She wants to move out of Iran and raise their daughter elsewhere, it is never specified where, and Nader wants to stay to take care of Alzheimer’s-afflicted father. You understand exactly where both of these people are coming from and feel your sympathies being pulled in both directions.

 

There is, of course, a separation as Simin moves out of the family apartment and Nader does not interfere or stop her. There’s a glimpse here that he respects her autonomy as a person, but refuses to allow her to take their daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). We sense the immense love and history between these people as this fracturing of the household occurs, but this is all nearly a prelude for what is to come.

 

One of the joys of watching A Separation is discovering where this basic premise takes us and revealing it in gory details would be a disservice. Just know that Nader hires a devoutly religious woman (Sareh Bayat) to care for his father in Simin’s absence, and this proves a complicating factor for a variety of reasons. The personal becomes uncomfortably political as class, sex, and religion comingle and ignite.   

 

Asghar Farhadi writes and directs a tense, absorbing drama that leaves us with ethical and moral questions that don’t have easy answers, if they can have any answer at all. Our empathies are evenly spread across the disparate POVs and characters demanding attention/their voice, and Farhadi glimpses them in often extreme closeup to register the immediacy of their situations. Farhadi’s milieu is a tender humanism that makes his fundamental structure so complicated and conflicted. Truly, A Separation is one of the richest films of the 2010s.

One of the most realistic depictions of society in Iran. What started as a little conflict has escalated into something bigger. Wow! I was completely immersed by this film.

Back then, when it was released, it was a huge critical success and many called it the best movie of the year so, with this in mind, I was really eager to check it out. To be honest, the whole thing was at first misleading. Indeed, I thought the movie was above all about this couple who were divorcing and I thought, somehow, that the movie would deal above all with the woman because she was the one who wanted this separation. In fact, the separation wasn’t the most dramatic event that took place, but an accident involving a pregnant woman who worked for the husband who might have been responsible for her miscarriage. This turn of event was actually quite compelling to watch. Indeed, it was quite a masterstroke from the director that even though I, and many viewers I guess, have very little knowledge of the Iranian culture and, still, I could really identify with most of the characters and I was able to understand most of the struggles they were facing. And that’s the other amazing thing about this flick is that you don’t only identify with the main character, you are able to understand all the other characters involved in the story and their motivations which was something quite unique and remarkable. After watching this flick, I was thinking about ‘Not without my daughter’, an American feature taking place in Iran which gave a terrible view on this people who seemed to be able only to shout at each other like some animals. Here, you can see that they are just like us, flawed, complex and facing some struggles everyday like everyone else. Anyway, to conclude, it was indeed a very good drama and it is definitely worth a look.

"What is wrong is wrong, no matter who said it or where it's written."

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.

Peyman Moadi: Nader

Leila Hatami: Leila Hatami (Simin)

A beautiful film and story is born from writer and director Asghar Farhadi. It comes in the form of this real, moving masterpiece A Separation.
The beauty comes from the way it transports us and shows us a way of life and we the audience become part of this existence. It is intriguing. It is interesting. It is, in my opinion, very beautiful, painful and real.



The cast, all previously unknown to me, give performances which echo realistic and powerful resonance. The complex yet subtle tones of a couple struggling to stay together, breaking even under a traditional and strict system in Iran. Yet we have his father suffering from Alzheimer's accompanied by his daughter confused by the ongoing fragmentation of her parents marriage.
The later added conflict with a woman whom is caring for the elderly father and then the blame and distortion regarding the situation and truth behind it all.

A Separation succeeds in being a dramatic tempest, a storm of human emotion and social uncertainty. The film gives us at the same time an insight into life in Iran, not just the traditions, the disciplines, the everyday workings of everyday people.
As we the audience accompany the characters on their respective journeys and routines, we also see how fused the Law and Religion are in Iran. How pious and strict they follow their beliefs and how it guides them with rules, honour and respect. The Qur'an is followed and stands as a basis for all people.
Religion and politics are entwined in Iran. At times I felt that the West could learn from the positive aspects of having this: Respect, routine, tradition and discipline versus the evils of extreme, total, liberal freedom.
Life has taught me that people need balance. They need air to breathe and they need space to grow... Yet they also need a purpose to do so.

As the film progresses the film asks us: What is truth? Who is telling the truth? Are honest people sometimes blinded by confusion regarding lies? How do we deal with loss and change in a society or World that encourages everything to remain the same?

A Separation is a story and film which deserves all Awards it garnered. It succeeds in being a very moving, deep piece intent on playing with our emotions: The victory lies in realism. We can all relate to the dramatic proceedings and the struggles the characters face when in conflict with each other. This is the human condition. This is temporary. Yet A Separation teaches us that these negative times do not weaken us but in fact they make us stronger. We learn and strive to not just overcome these argumentative dramas, but we grow and leave them behind.
The ending leaves us with the couple, and the daughter deciding which parent she wants to live with as they separate:
Particular questions I end up asking are these, "Should a child, a son or a daughter even have to decide between her parents? How can we choose between loved ones? How can we have one moment to decide upon a life altering conclusion?"
The film leaves the ending up to us. An ambiguous conclusion where it is up to us to answer and decide for ourselves. Such is life.

Nader and Simin are a couple married for 14 years. But there is a problem. Simin insists on moving abroad but Nader cannot as his father has Alzheimer's syndrome. Thus Simin decides to separate from him and take her 11 year old daughter with her. Nader refuses the divorce and plainly ignores the problem as he knew she would never leave. But then one thing leads to another and gap begins to widen. Will they Separate? Well, last year, This small Iranian film took the world by storm. You might have heard a lot about it. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language and was nominated in the Original Screenplay Category. This film... Wow! A Separation completely won my heart for it's brilliance but at the same time broke it because of what it depicted. Rarely does any movie comes closer to perfection. The film is rich culturally, visually and in character development. It's a great Dramatic Thriller that grips you straight by the collar and that too from the very first dialog!! The first scene takes place in the Courtroom where Nader and Simin are arguing on the matter of divorce. The entire first scene is shot without a single break continuously for 3 to 4 minutes! Now that's such a difficult task but the directed pulled it off. And after we are gripped completely by the movie, it delivers the most intense, thrilling and realistic experience you might not get in any other action or thriller movie!! Hats off to Farhadi and I hope that he makes more movies like these. Truly, for the first time I think that we owe something to this movie watching experience and A Separation truly deserves a long bow... Highly Recommended!!

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The avalanche of moral, ethical, legal and emotional dilemmas that emerges during A Separation is the best late Christmas gift for any lover of great drama. This is an overwhelming, stupefyingly well-crafted motion picture that succeeds as magnificently well as it does thanks to its layered thematic complexity, its raw realism and the top-shelf work from the best ensemble cast in a 2011 film. I beg you to please ignore the terrible poster and not to get discouraged by the fact that you'll have to read subtitles. It may be a 2-hour, dialogue-driven foreign film, but those two hours go by insanely quickly, as it's impossible not to get immersed in the ocean of conundrums that this film fires at us throughout every second of its running time. The fact that the conundrums faced by these characters are largely universal in nature will make this film resonate deeply with anyone, regardless of where they're from. A Separation is a devastating, flawless piece of minimalist cinema that refuses to take the easy way out in every turn it takes. What are you supposed to do when your moral/religious compass directs you to point A, the law directs you to point B, and the urgent need to save your own skin and that of your loved ones directs you to point C?

Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) is an 11-year-old girl who lives in an apartment with her parents and her grandfather, an Alzheimer's patient. Unfortunately, her father, Nader (Peyman Maadi), recently decided to apply for a divorce from Termeh's mother, Simin (Leila Hatami). The rift in the marriage came as a result of the fact that Simin wants to move somewhere where the family can have better opportunities, while Nader refuses to leave his mentally sick father in someone else's care. For reasons that won't be revealed till later, young Termeh decides to stay living with her father and grandfather, rather than move somewhere with her mother. While Nader is at work during the day, the grandfather is looked after by a female caretaker named Razieh (Sareh Bayat), who is very much in need of the money she gets from this job, but she's a little worried about the gender dynamics of it, to the point that she'd rather call Simin (who no longer lives in the apartment) to get advice on how to do certain things. When the grandfather soils himself, Razieh worries about whether or not it'd be a sin for her to clean him up herself. As tricky as that all may sound, you have no idea how complicated things are about to get. Discussing the plot further would inevitably take me into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that, one day when Nader returns from work, something happens between him and Razieh. The event may initially seem like an insignificant scuffle, but it eventually snowballs into something so catastrophic that it threatens to destroy the lives of two families. Much like a tsunami or a train's derailment, it's a disaster you can't look away from.

A lot of the films that I've seen in recent years that have tried to capture a slice of life in a Middle Eastern country have focused a lot on black-and-white issues that we're well aware of, such as bitter battles over religious differences and the status of inferiority to which women are relegated. These films have been particularly straightforward in their portrayal of villains and victims - even the most feeble-minded moviegoer can tell who's the abuser and who's the abused. But that's not the case with A Separation, a film in which, just when you think you found a character who is the most morally righteous, the one you can root for, he or she will then do something that will make you question your choice. A Separation is completely non-judgmental - it portrays ALL of its many characters as vulnerable people. They all bend the truth (and even outright lie) every once in a while. They all do things they shouldn't do. But they're all also victims of that same behavior from the other characters, and they all do what they do out of a desperate desire for survival, which makes all of this a knotty, vicious circle of moral difficulties. Of course, this makes the film enormously stimulating and thought-provoking for the audience member, because one is constantly trying to determine whose side one should be on. This is also the kind of film that will make you wish a rewind button were available in the movie theater. The scuffle between Nader and Razieh careens into so many debates over small details in terms of HOW certain things happened, that you'll wish you could revisit the event. "Wait, did she actually tell him?" "Did he really push her that hard?"

At a certain point, one may start wondering whether the titular event is as central to the plot as the title would suggest, seeing as Nader and Simin separate at the beginning of the film, and the rest of the film seems to be exclusively about the consequences of what happened between Nader and Razieh. But as the film's moral dilemmas continue unfolding and as Simin slowly starts involving herself more and more in the situation, one realizes that the "separation" refers to much more than just the couple's physical parting from each other. The divide between Nader and Simin is meant to reflect the current rift in Iran between those who wish to continue living under rigid, by-the-book conservatism and those who believe that certain adjustments are needed in order for people to attain a better quality of life. Notice the contrast between Simin's decision at the beginning of the film when she has to decide whether or not to pay extra money to the people helping to carry the piano versus Nader's decision at the gas station in regard to whether or not the employee should receive a tip. At one point early on in the film, Nader is helping Termeh with some homework, and Termeh insists that she's supposed to answer something the way her teacher told her to answer it, rather than the way the books say it should be answered, but Nader responds: "No. What's wrong is wrong, no matter who says it or where it's written." As the movie starts deepening into its central conflict, this divide between the two characters becomes crucial, as Nader relentlessly refuses to accept any culpability or pay for something he is certain he didn't cause, whereas Simin is willing to "bend things" if it'll help her family's well-being. How will the inevitable collision between these two characters' ethical compasses impact the resolution of the problem the family faces?

What makes A Separation soar in quality as a motion picture is that, in spite of the impression you may have gotten so far from my review, this isn't a droning exercise in moral philosophy, but rather, it's a film in which the dialogue and the situations continually move the film at a suspenseful pace towards its devastating conclusion. Guns and car chases can be fantastic in their own right at creating tension... but consider this simple, unscored scene in A Separation: One character testifies in front of a judge. We already know that the character isn't being entirely honest. The judge calls another character in, to see if this second character will confirm the lie. The second character does not know about the lie that was just told. Not only is this scene thoroughly nail-biting, but it's also a great point for us audience members to ask ourselves where we're at: Do we want the lie to be uncovered or not? To make matters even better, A Separation ends exactly where it needs to, not a second before or a second after. It chooses to leave one question unanswered, but it's a question that doesn't need to be answered, because the results will be grim and devastating no matter what the decision is.

As the separated couple, Peyman Maadi and Leila Hatami are not only perfect foils for one another, but they flawlessly help fashion the film's two-sided moral framework, which is never black and white. Both actors seamlessly create characters who are being hit in all directions and have to balance their daughter's emotional well-being, their own physical well-being and the family's financial survival. As the young, puberty-bound Termeh, Sarina Farhadi perfectly combines youthful vulnerability with wisdom and perceptiveness: you see, she's effortless at demonstrating the severe impact that the film's conflict has on her, but on more than one instance, she emerges as the character who catches most of the little details and who realizes how and why people are being dishonest. There are plenty of instances in which we see Termeh simply sitting and observing while everything she's watching quickly falls into chaos. But the best performance in A Separation, by a mile, is the one given by Sareh Bayat. It's not unwarranted that you'll frequently go from thinking she's a mean-spirited liar to feeling sorry for her situation, and then back again, until the end of the film, when you'll probably feel she's just as much of a victim as anyone else who gets entangled in a situation like this. Consider the scene in which Bayat literally begs the judge not to write down what he's about to write down, and she nearly pulverizes from the desperation. It's the kind of scene that the best suporting actress Oscar was made for, and it would most definitely be under consideration if the Academy's asinine politics didn't hinder this film's chances in all categories except Best Foreign Film.

And those politics truly are asinine because the issues in A Separation are as universal as they get. You don't need to live in any specific part of the world to know how complicated it is to decide whether to do what's right versus what's better for your personal survival. You don't need to live in any specific part of the world to know that decisions like that become exponentially harder when money is involved. And you don't need to live in any specific part of the world to know that the stakes are a dozen times higher when the well-being of your loved ones is in play. A Separation isn't just a reminder that perfect, masterful dramas can still be made - it's a reminder that it's not even that difficult to make them. All it takes is the sensibility to effectively display heart-wrenching issues and situations, and a group of talented actors who can make those issues and situations burn up the screen. I should mention that the release of A Separation puts an end to a ridiculously long and depressing drought: not one truly great film was released during 2010, and 2011 looked to be headed in the same direction until now. The fact that the drought was ended by a non-Hollywood, non-American release speaks volumes. A Separation is one of the finest motion pictures of the young decade, thanks to the enormous amount of intellectual and emotional stimulation that it has to offer and to its unfettered realism and dramatic power.