Hi everyone!
The Iranian film "A Separation" finally opened in Chicago today at the Music Box Theatre. I've been looking forward to seeing it ever since it opened in limited release last year so I schlepped up to see it this afternoon. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait.
"A Separation" has already won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and is a two-time Oscar nominee this year for both Best Foreign Film and Best Original Screenplay. It is rather ironic that this film is probably going to win at least one Oscar at a time when relations between the U.S. and Iran are at a thirty-year low.
In brief, the film tells the story of a married couple, Simin and her husband Nader, an average middle-class Iranian family living in Tehran. After fourteen years of marriage, Simin files for divorce so she and their teenage daughter Termeh can leave Iran for (assumably) a better life in the West. Nader refuses to leave because he is in the midst of caring for his elderly father who is suffering from Alzheimer's. The divorce petition is rejected and Simin moves in with her parents. Termeh, the daughter, chooses to stay with her father. At Simin's suggestion, Nader hires Razieh, a thirty-something pregnant woman with a strong religious conviction, to care for his father while he works during the day at a bank. The job proves too much for Razieh and when she tries to quit after a particularly bad (and at first unexplained) spell with Nader's father, things quickly spin out of control.
This film is riveting on a number of levels, not the least of which is that it illuminates a culture that is alien to so many of us in the West and a country that, because of its theocratic leadership and government-sanctioned extremist ideology, is as frightening and unpredictable in many ways as North Korea. Religion plays a key role in much of what unfolds onscreen even if it is less overt than many might expect. Simin and Nader are average workaday people who only want what's best for themselves and their child, although they do not agree on how to achieve this. For them, religion is not the issue. It has more to do with Nader's devotion to his ailing father than anything else. Razieh, however, who dresses in flowing chadors and calls religious hotlines to tell her whether a decision is morally acceptable, is forced to choose between doing what is right and what she believes God would want her to do. For someone with such a pious religious and moral conviction, she finds herself rendered powerless. Her hot-headed and unemployed husband, Houjat, doesn't help matters either.
While I was watching the film, I found myself asking all sorts of questions, particularly in regards to who was in the "right" and who was in the "wrong." Each of these characters suffers for stubbornly adhering to their own personal ethic. My own sympathies tended to side with Nader while my heart really went out to the daughter Termeh who is sadly caught in the middle and, at the end of the film, is forced to make an extremely difficult decision. As accusations mount and events devolve into a he said/she said situation with potentially strong ramifications, the film portrays the undercurrent of fear and paranoia that runs through Iranian society today. It never overtly condemns or criticizes the Iranian legal system but it is does show how it is based upon perceptions of religious morality and hearsay that from a legal perspective offers its citizens very little protection.
Asghar Farhadi--the writer, director, and producer--was banned from making the film in September 2010 after he was accused of making 'politically incorrect' statements in support of several banned or exiled Iranian filmmakers; however, the ban was lifted in October after it was determined Mr. Farhadi's statements had been misconstrued. The film received its premiere at the Fair International Film Festival in Tehran last February and has gone on to win great acclaim and several awards on the international film festival circuit.
For anyone interested in strong international film-making and receiving at least a glimpse of insight into a world closed to most of us here in the West, "A Separation" succeeds on both counts. It is one of the very best films of 2011.
Ciao.
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