In Tehran, Iran, a woman, Simin, wants a divorce. It’s not that she doesn’t love her husband, Nader, or that he treats her badly. And it’s not the she’s cheating on him, or vice versa. No, nothing like that. The problem is that she wants to take her family, including their 10-year-old daughter, out of the country to try to build a better life for them, and he wants to stay home caring for his elderly father who suffers from Alzheimer’s. They both have respectable intentions — there is no bad guy — but only one will get their way, and, given Iran’s notoriously patriarchal society, I’m sure you can guess who that is.
Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning (Best Foreign Language Film, 2011) “A Separation” chronicles the chain of events that follow this failed divorce attempt. Simin moves in with her parents, and Nader tries to get along without her, which requires him to hire a helper, a pregnant lower-class woman named Razieh. At first, things go manageably well, if a bit rough at times. However, when Nader comes home to find his unconscious father tied to his bed and Razieh nowhere to be seen, and when at her eventual arrival he pushes her out the door and down the stairs in a fit of anger, and when the next day at the hospital it is revealed that Razieh has had a miscarriage… well, that’s when things stop being polite and start getting real.
Many arguments and altercations occur throughout the rest of “A Separation,” as Razieh and her husband open a case against Nader and as he counters by opening a case against them, but the extraordinary thing about the movie is that there are, still, no bad guys, no one to root against. Yes, people make mistakes, they fuck up, and they lie. The movie is not trying to excuse those actions. However, it is always vibrantly apparent that everyone is simply doing what they can to survive, clawing and scratching and fighting daily just to gain the modicum of dignity that so many take for granted. And as much as you may disagree with the way Razieh or Nader act, you can see that their pains are real, their struggles are heavy, and there’s nothing on earth that would make you want to deny them happiness.
There’s nothing showy about the filmmaking in “A Separation,” at least stylistically, nor does there need to be. Farhadi wisely steps back from the camera and lets his characters interact — with each other, with themselve and with the society that envelops them. The result is a stirringly genuine and powerful social drama the likes of which hasn’t been seen in years, maybe decades. It’s been a week since I saw it, and yet I still can’t go more than a few hours without thinking about this bona fide masterpiece, and I don’t see these constant mental revisitations ending any time soon.
You know, sometimes the Oscars really do get it right.
5 out of 5