FILM OF THE WEEK: A Separation
by Vadim Rizov 
A Separation literally makes the viewer judge its protagonists: in the opening scene, wife Simin (
Leila Hatami) pleads for a divorce from husband Nader (Peyman Maadi). The POV is the judge's, who skeptically asks why an Iranian woman would possibly want her daughter to grow up anywhere else. The offscreen interrogator/filmmaker is a familiar figure in Iranian cinema, with
Abbas Kiarostami and
Jafar Panahi often breaking the fourth walls in their films, often directly appearing (and/or heard off-camera) asking their characters questions. Kiarostami's seemingly given up on making films in Iran at all, while Panahi's imprisoned; for many, Iranian cinema's currently more associated right now with its absentees than actual films. But writer-director
Asghar Farhadi's now completed five features, carefully disavowing any political intent in interviews. "There's a difference between intentions and message," a
typical feint to The New York Times went. ?My intention was to create a story and let you interpret what it means.?
A Separation's twists and consequences are equally dictated by human frailty and laws that bluntly discriminate against women (a recent Iranian
news story reports on a woman sentenced to be stoned to death, whose execution is being postponed while Islamic scholars debate the propriety of downgrading to a mere hanging): the judge?s question is asked from a profoundly unempathetic place, placing the claims of cultural heritage above all else. The full title?
Nader and Simin: A Separation?is misdirection, suggesting a couple?s divorce is the center: in truth, Nader and Simin spend far more time apart than confronting each other here. Their split is shoved aside when they?re placed into direct conflict with their would-be employees Razieh (Sareh Bayet) and Hodjat (
Shahab Hosseini). With Simin gone, Nader?s Alzheimer?s-afflicted father needs to be looked after during the day; Razieh takes the job in secret and covers for Simin when he fails to take over as scheduled.
An anonymously penned
dissection of the film's political undercurrents is a must-read. The quick bottom line: the separation is not just between man and wife, but between two different couples, one well-educated, relatively prosperous and tilting secular, the other teetering on the financial brink and deeply religious. In both cases, the marriages are troubled but otherwise at-odds husbands-and-wives uniting to form class-defined alliances against the other: the struggle that emerges between the two clans has as much to do with barely repressed animosity for the other's lifestyle as with the actual transgressions (it's best to go in cold). Hodjat bangs doors and hotheadedly gets himself into trouble; "I can't talk like him," he barks frustratedly, pointing at the comparatively urbane Nader. The dilemmas in this film are tinged with seething class hatreds not unique to Iran but endemic to any country with large income gaps and some sense of a class system (i.e., most anywhere).
But it's hard to ignore that most of the legal discussions, negotiations and police investigations revolve around women in ways that are alternately patronizing and/or blatantly unfair. Farhadi doesn't have to exaggerate or underline anything to make his case: he simply has to present an accurate representation of the Iranian legal system in routine action. All four adults boast some level of dysfunction, but the legal discussions always focus on women's bodies and actions, with ultimate responsibility/culpability and control for both ceded to men. In part because the film's presentation of middle-class dynamics is recognizable to urban Iranian filmgoers, it's been successful in its (surprisingly sanctioned) release; by September 30, pirated copies had flooded the streets. Farhadi's been circumspect since almost getting banned from filmmaking for comments made in support of Panahi, but it's worth noting that this conspicuously depoliticized film functions fully as a personal drama about evasions of responsibility, which acts as something of a cover for its polemical thrust: decrying the legal fabric of Iranian society.
Every scene has legal time bombs ticking away; only gradually do the potentially life-crippling effects of momentary lapses make themselves aware. It?'s a charged environment (or, as the oddball Iranian newspaper
Tehran Times'
noted official critics said, "it portrays Iran as a chaotic society of liars"). It's understandable that both Farhadi and U.S. distributor Sony Pictures Classics would want to downplay the politics and emphasize the universal aspects of the story considering that early American audiences
have expressed surprise that Iranian society isn't just "deserts and camels." It?s a fearsomely effective film; I kept thinking of
The Social Network, with which it shares nothing but the ability to make two hours of muddled conflict among equally off-putting people riveting through sheer propulsive momentum. To be fair, it's also a very credible indictment, a dissenting document operating in synchronized parallel with its surface drama of ethics.
Posted by ahillis at December 29, 2011 1:13 PM
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