A separation (2011)

A Separation is a popular contemporary film - and yet it actually manages to feel like a film for adults. That, in itself, is impressive. The film does not brag with stylistic extravaganza. The center of the film is a couple planning a separation due to one of them moving abroad. Actually, the very both to move, together with their small daughter, but the husband decides to stay to take care of his elderly father. During the rest of the film, we see two people who seem to have loved each other grow more bitter, proud and conscious of keeping up their own sense of self-respect. They both want to do whatever is right "for the child", but it is the child who suffers and who has to make the hardest decisions. As the wife, Simin, moves away, the husband, Nader, hires a care worker to look after the father while he works. Something goes wrong, and a series of personal and juridical strifes ensue. Everybody want to do good but things just get worse. Decency and good manners easily turn into contempt and condescension. A separation is a bleak movie, and it doesn't attempt to make the viewer feel comfortable: everything will be ok in the end. But it doesn't appear to be a cynical film either. It is a film that observes, rather than preaches. Asghar Farhadi directed the film and I am curious about the rest of his production. The tempo of the film is slow and hectic at the same time. We view people in distress, and it is as if the film watches them from one corner of a room that is always crowded, always ablaze with seething or repressed emotions. There is no hint of sentimentality in Farhadi's plot or in the actors' delivery. A separation is raw, willing to tell a story about the knots of human relations, class differences and gender roles. I am glad I watched it.