A Separation (2011)
(Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)
Country: IR/FR/AUS
Technical: col 123m
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Cast: Payman Maadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini, Sarina Farhadi
Synopsis:
A middle class Tehran couple files for divorce because the wife wants to leave the country and the husband refuses to go with her. As the days tick by before the expiry of the wife's visa, and she moves to her mother's, the contours of a future existence are adumbrated by the need of the husband's father for a carer.
Review:
Farhadi's masterly societal drama has more layers of dissemblance, truth and half truth than an onion, as religious scruple, male pride and family ties do battle with an unbending legal system, only to resort to a private financial settlement. Meanwhile the central question, or so one thought, of whether the couple would separate and with which parent the daughter would stay, is left open. A neo-realist mise-en-scène belies an intricate script and interlocking narrative which artfully reveals itself so that one's sympathies are never allowed to side with one party for long. The concept of separation, which includes from the homeland, holds up for scrutiny a society in which secular and religious considerations at times come perilously close, and the men behave like children!
(Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)
Country: IR/FR/AUS
Technical: col 123m
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Cast: Payman Maadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini, Sarina Farhadi
Synopsis:
A middle class Tehran couple files for divorce because the wife wants to leave the country and the husband refuses to go with her. As the days tick by before the expiry of the wife's visa, and she moves to her mother's, the contours of a future existence are adumbrated by the need of the husband's father for a carer.
Review:
Farhadi's masterly societal drama has more layers of dissemblance, truth and half truth than an onion, as religious scruple, male pride and family ties do battle with an unbending legal system, only to resort to a private financial settlement. Meanwhile the central question, or so one thought, of whether the couple would separate and with which parent the daughter would stay, is left open. A neo-realist mise-en-scène belies an intricate script and interlocking narrative which artfully reveals itself so that one's sympathies are never allowed to side with one party for long. The concept of separation, which includes from the homeland, holds up for scrutiny a society in which secular and religious considerations at times come perilously close, and the men behave like children!
(Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)
Country: IR/FR/AUS
Technical: col 123m
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Cast: Payman Maadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini, Sarina Farhadi
Synopsis:
A middle class Tehran couple files for divorce because the wife wants to leave the country and the husband refuses to go with her. As the days tick by before the expiry of the wife's visa, and she moves to her mother's, the contours of a future existence are adumbrated by the need of the husband's father for a carer.
Review:
Farhadi's masterly societal drama has more layers of dissemblance, truth and half truth than an onion, as religious scruple, male pride and family ties do battle with an unbending legal system, only to resort to a private financial settlement. Meanwhile the central question, or so one thought, of whether the couple would separate and with which parent the daughter would stay, is left open. A neo-realist mise-en-scène belies an intricate script and interlocking narrative which artfully reveals itself so that one's sympathies are never allowed to side with one party for long. The concept of separation, which includes from the homeland, holds up for scrutiny a society in which secular and religious considerations at times come perilously close, and the men behave like children!