A Separation (2011)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on February 13, 2012 @ tonymacklin.net.

Separation is an active international phenomenon. Cultures and societies are at war with themselves.

A Separation is about one of these cultures and societies.

A Separation was written and directed by Iranian Asghar Farhadi in Persian language (also released with English subtitles). It is about conflict and evasion. It's about separated classes, separated religions, separated genders, and separated families.

Basically it sounds as though it could be set in an American state or city where conflicts between the above reign not-so-supreme.

But this film is set in Tehran. It's set in a theocracy, not in the land of freedom.

Of course, the majority of folks who believe in "freedom" mean freedom for themselves and their ilk, not for those who don't agree with them.

Wasn't it Patrick Henry who said, "Give me freedom as I destroy yours"?

Obviously "freedom" is not a concept viable in a theocracy like Iran, but change is happening. A Separation shows the human struggle for respect and a better life. It's a struggle rife with human frailty.

A Separation begins with shots of IDs and papers, then a couple sitting looking into the camera as the woman Simin (Leila Hatami) is petitioning an interrogator for a divorce.

Simin wants to take her daughter Termeh (Sarini Farhardi) out of the country, so that she can get a better education in the modern world.

Her husband Nader (Peyman Moadi) rejects the idea, because he insists he has to stay and take care of his deteriorating father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who has severe Alzheimer's. The father is dependent on the son. The father represents the past.

The interrogator - representing the system in a theocracy - rejects the petition as minor and tells them to work out their disagreement. No help from that system.

The son and daughter-in-law are middle-class professionals. Nader works in a bank and Simin is a teacher. Under traditional garb is a modern woman, who wears blue jeans, drives a car, and in one scene comes back into the apartment after smoking a cigarette.

She moves back home with her mother, and leaves Nader and their daughter with the infirm father-in-law. Since she has to work, she can't come and take steady care of the old man.

So she hires a woman Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to take care of the nearly-helpless old man. The lower-class Razieh doesn't drive, and has to take a long trip by buses with her 4-year old daughter Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini) in tow. Razieh, who is devoutly religious, wears the traditional black chador.

She takes the job because she needs the money for her debt-ridden husband Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini) who is an unemployed cobbler. He is quick to anger, which is crucial, and because of his strict Muslim faith he winds up physically and psychologically beating himself in helpless frustration.

Razieh's religion forbids her from some necessary contact with the incontinent infirm old man for whom she is supposed to care.

And as in many conflicts - worldwide - money causes trouble. Money is missing from the apartment which escalates into anger, frustration, recriminations, and fateful consequences.

We never find out what happened to the money, although we can make an educated guess. [I think I know.]

Asghar Farhadi is not one to provide answers. He is a sly writer and director, and leaves us with questions that are provocative and elusive.

When a car window is smashed, is it just violence or does it represent broken barriers? Or is it the violence of debt? Money again.

As with many outcomes, Farhadi doesn't resolve his questions. A Separation is full of half-truths, evasions, secrets, uncertainties in a world that demands certainties.

The cast is uniformly effective. Unlike Francis Ford Coppola, who used his daughter to shaky effect in The Godfather, Part 3 (1990), Farhadi effectively casts his own daughter Sarina as the studious 11-year old Termeh in his film.

Termeh and the curious 4-year-old Somayeh are the faces of the uncertain future.

Farhadi's greatest evasion in A Separation, a movie about evasions, was to elude the Iranian censors. Truth and insight are shimmering in A Separation.

A Separation is a tale about people caught between the past and future. Although we may try to evade that, it's universal.

Are we backward or forward?

Do we know?