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Joan Ellis
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...a top
level cast, director, and writer.
A SEPARATION
An Illusion Review by Joan Ellis
Imagine a movie so real and
immediate that it seems to be unfolding right in front of you. This is
A Separation, Iran's entry for this year's Best Foreign Language Film
at the Academy Awards. This story of the endless complexities of marriage
and family explains the wide appeal of this film. Universal institution,
universal problems. Imagine further a film with no villains, just decent
people reacting within the parameters of their culture to whatever life
throws at them. A series of events unfolds, each one leading inevitably to
the next, with the next always bringing a new set of complications.
The first
extraordinary scene sets the stage for a chain of circumstance that soon
envelops two families. Simin (Leila Hatami) and her husband Nader (Peyman
Moadi) have come before a judge because Simin wants to leave Iran with her
husband and daughter for a better life. Nader refuses because he won't
leave his father who has Alzheimer's. Right then, Simin, in a burst of
anger, begs her husband to leave with her. "Your father doesn't even know
you," she says, and he replies, "Yes, but I know he is my father." And so
we learn that we are in the presence of a top level cast, director, and
writer.
Simin then
sues for divorce so she can leave with her daughter. When the judge denies
her motion, Simin moves back to her parents' home. Daughter Termeh (Sarina
Farhadi) chooses to stay with her father. The cascade of problems that
ensues endangers all the values so important to the family.
Nader hires
Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to take care of his father while he is at work. When
she leaves the house on an errand that violates the tenets of care giving,
the domestic routine is destroyed by circumstance. Nader is a decent man
overwhelmed by a sick father and his own work. No one is wrong; everyone
is decent and kind, but they are all thrown off their normal pace and into
the vagaries of blame and anger by the events that began with Simin's
departure. Temeh, the daughter, demands to know the truth behind the
trouble, but there is no exact truth because these are, after all, human
beings.
All through
its length, director Asghar Farhadi poses questions that he never answers.
Would the daughter, Termeh, have had a better life if the family had
emigrated? Was Razieh validated in holding the secret that unraveled two
families? Did Razieh hold her damaging secret because of her husband's
violent temper?
We look to
blame someone - always the easiest way - but we can't because these are
all good people under siege by circumstance and choices. As each cherished
value comes under attack, the emotions of one person or another spiral
upward in an emotional eruption. Credit this group of extremely fine
actors with sending us away still trying to fit together the jig saw
puzzle of the human condition. That's a gift.
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