A Separation
DIRECTED BY ASGHAR FARHADI
If Rashomon is one of cinema’s most widely referenced masterworks, it’s a relative rarity to encounter a film that both bears its influence and approaches its general brilliance, but Asghar Farhadi’s remarkable A Separation does just that. Conspicuously echoing Kurosawa’s model of the moviegoer-as-magistrate, the Iranian writer-director has crafted a riveting domestic-cum-judicial drama that acts as a portrait of his uniquely tumultuous homeland while also probing universal facets of human nature.
Farhadi’s protagonists are a secular, middle-class married couple, who he introduces in an elegantly expository opening scene. Simin (Leila Hatami) has petitioned for a divorce from her husband, Nader (Peymen Moaadi), citing his change of heart with respect to their mooted move abroad. He is, by her admission, “a good, decent person,” but she fears for the future of their adolescent daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), under Iran’s patriarchal theocracy. Nader counters with an assertion of obligation to his Alzheimer’s-afflicted father, and while he’s prepared to consent to the divorce, he won’t surrender Termeh. The judge, in turn, disdainfully dismisses the case.
Simin’s subsequent decision to move in with her parents necessitates that Nader find a caretaker for his father, and he hires the devout and financially desperate Razieh (Sareh Bayat), who has a young daughter and an unemployed husband (Shahab Hosseini), as well as a growing baby bump concealed beneath her chador. Razieh is soon overwhelmed by the task, and a momentary lapse triggers a series of incidents that grow steadily more calamitous, such that the dispute between Nader and Simin is subsumed by proceedings that are far more intricate and altogether more grave.
As in Kurosawa’s classic, the ensuing investigation sees each party present a version of events informed by their disparate social stations and distorted by self-interest, though thanks to Farhadi’s fascinatingly evenhanded screenplay, A Separation never strays into artificial didacticism. Rather, the film communicates its various perspectives and themes—concerning class, gender, justice, religion and child rearing—with abundant nuance, reinforced throughout by suitably prismatic symbolism. The cast, meanwhile, are universally faultless, so much so that the film’s entire ensemble of performers was collectively awarded the Best Actor and Best Actress prizes at the 2011 Berlinale, where A Separation was also voted Best Film.
Coincidentally, Rashomon won the equivalent prize at Venice 60 years earlier, and in doing so, brought Japanese film-making to worldwide attention. While Iranian cinema needs no introduction, given increasingly stringent domestic censorship, Farhadi’s film at least serves as a very welcome affirmation.