Separation, A (2011) [Blu-ray]
Drama
--- Subtitled ---
Tagline: Lies may lead to truth.
Set in contemporary Iran, A Separation is a compelling drama about the dissolution of a marriage. Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. Simin sues for divorce when Nader refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering
father. Her request having failed, Simin returns to her parents' home, but Termeh decides to stay with Nader. When Nader hires a young woman to assist with his father in his wife's absence, he hopes that his life will return to a normal state. However,
when he discovers that the new maid has been lying to him, he realizes that there is more on the line than just his marriage.
Storyline: Nader ('Peyman Moaadi' ) and Simin (Leila Hatami) argue about living abroad. Simin prefers to live abroad to provide better opportunities for their only daughter, Termeh. However, Nader refuses to go because he thinks
he must stay in Iran and take care of his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who suffers from Alzheimers. However, Simin is determined to get a divorce and leave the country with her daughter. Written by Amin Davoodi
Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, August 18, 2012 -- From the title and description, one might reasonably assume A Separation focuses almost entirely on the difficult realities of a couple on the outs, with love
in the rearview mirror and divorce a strong possibility -- even a foregone conclusion -- in the immediate future. That's certainly the foundation, but there's much more to Director Asghar Farhadi's (About Elly), wonderful A Separation, one
of the most balanced, immersive, emotionally challenging, and dramatically satisfying pictures of the 2000s and from any corner of the world. The picture captures the essence of human conflict, of fear, misplaced blame, distrust, anger, vengeful thought,
the rush to conclusions, and the mental and emotional drain of lives in turmoil, of the role of fate and circumstance and accident and deliberate action all come together into a singular, involved, inescapable confrontation where life and death are at the
center of the conversation, where futures hang in the balance on the interpretations, truths, and falsehoods of the past. A Separation earned the 2012 Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year and was awarded the Golden and
Silver Bears at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Nader (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) have been married for fourteen years. They have a bright eleven-year-old daughter named Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). Unfortunately, their marriage is crumbling. Nader wishes to remain in Iran, raise his daughter
right, and care for his Alzheimer's-stricken father who requires almost twenty-four hour care, all while working a full-time job at a Tehran bank. Simin wishes to leave the country for the sake of her daughter, but to keep the family intact while abroad.
The divide has led the couple to a breaking point, but the courts order Simin to remain in the marriage. She does, but leaves to live with her parents, forcing Nader to find outside help for his father's care. He hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a pious woman
but a reluctant employee who dislikes the low pay and long travel required to arrive at the job site. She brings her young daughter with her and does not seek out her husband Hojjat's (Shahab Hosseini) approval for the position, determined to earn the
family money at any cost, particularly while Hojjat is out of work. She soon comes to dislike the work -- not only for the pay, but the demands placed upon her and the doubts she incurs about the religious validity of her actions -- and hopes to
clandestinely slide her husband into the job in her place. But circumstances dictate that she return day after day, until one day a series of events lead to tragedy, misunderstanding, and a feud between the families that will forever alter the course of
the lives of all involved.
A Separation's greatest asset lies in its natural cadence and absorbing flow. Certainly there's a bushel of finely-tuned pieces -- more on those in a moment -- but the picture's ability to so effortlessly draw its audience into the story is key.
Even as, for many viewers, the action unfolds half a world away in a land known but perhaps not fully understood, the picture tells a universal tale of raw human emotions and actions that transcend borders, tongues, lifestyles, and religions. The picture
focuses on a broken family and the further rupture brought about by misunderstanding amongst two very different parties, both struggling through their own tough stretches of life, one the separation of family and the other a separation from dignity and
trust. Hojjat's temper stems from his inability to find steady work, escalated by his learning of the terrible events centered on and stemming from his wife's employment under Nader. Nader's family struggles -- with his wife and his aging father -- strain
him to a breaking point. Simin's singular focus on the divorce and Razieh's fear of facing the realities of her life all contribute to a verbal and, nearly, physical free-for-all that finds the parties fighting not always even for the truth or justice but
their own personal validation and almost as a release of pent-up frustrations colliding against emotional barriers which crumble under the greater stress of criminal proceedings. The movie is as dramatically intense and as uniquely absorbing as any to
come along in quite a while. It's the perfect Human Drama where simple events and complex characters together shape a uniquely intoxicating world of mystery, emotion, and reality.
Certainly, the character dynamics and the actors' portrayals define the movie even in ways the raw workmanship behind the script and story nuance and generalities both cannot convey. A Separation is a powerfully dynamic motion picture shaped by a
number of incredible performances. All of the primaries -- even the father with Alzheimer's and Razieh's little girl -- never feel like characters in a film but real, tangible, life-lived people who have been shaped by a lifetime's worth of experiences
and collected destinies that have led them to the shared moments as depicted in the film. Never does the movie or its characters feel like a fictional piece of work. It's that absolute believability and seamless blending of the fictional and the real and
life and the cinema screen that make a movie great, and A Separation accomplishes that transition as well as any film ever has. The movie effortlessly combines a limited, intimate scope with expansive, complex drama, reflecting the realities of
small-group struggles with uncanny precision. So real are the characters, so urgent are their problems, so involved are their lives, so captivating are their stories that this is the sort of movie audiences want to move through quickly so as to know
what's to come of them but to at the same time move slowly to savor the experience, to cherish filmmaking at its finest. Any picture that can pull off that feat is worthy of commendation, and A Separation deserves every last accolade it
receives.
A Separation is an archival worthy picture, a textbook example of a perfect Character Drama, a wonderful motion picture experience that covers a broad range of human emotions in a universal tale of misunderstanding, distrust, passion, anger, and
doubt. It's a powerful, moving, immersive, and complete motion picture experience. It's precisely directed, naturally acted, and expertly written. The film has earned countless awards and endless critical praise. It's one of the top movies of 2012 and
it's not to be missed by any audiences that crave true, honest cinematic drama over repetitive blockbuster fare. Sony's Blu-ray release of A Separation features good video, steady audio, and a few quality extras. Highly recommended.
[CSW] -4.5- A Separation is a beautiful, intelligent, jarring Iranian film that focuses on the separation between Nader (the father) and Simin (the mother). Simin wants to leave the country because she believes it will be better for the couple's
daughter Termeh (the daughter); however Nader refuses to leave because he feels an obligation to take care of his father who has Alzheimer's. Termeh decides to stay with her father because she knows that her mother will not leave the country without her,
therefor keeping her family more together than they would be if she left with her mother. The performances in this film are flat out amazing, but it is Sarina Farhadi who plays the couple's daughter, and Sareh Bayat (the housekeeper), who really elevate
the film. Farhadi takes her quiet, meek character and delivers a performance that proves how powerful child actors and actresses can be given the right role. Bayet, on the other hand, gives such a sympathetic performance that even when she is doing the
"wrong" thing we can't help but know that she is genuinely trying to do what is right and support her throughout the film. This is a stunning moving film and one of the best that I have seen in a long time. Knowing all of the intricacies made this a
once-is-enough for me, but I would gladly add it to my collection of I found someone else that wanted to see it with me again. Although subtitled (but worth the effort) this is definitely a "Don't-Miss" film.
IMDb Rating (11/15/12): 8.5/10 from 68,173 users Top 250: #102
[V4.0-A3.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.
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