Le passé (2013)

Asghar Farhadi made the brilliant A Separation a few years ago and now he returns with Le passé which even though it has much in common with the breakthrough film, is inferior to it because of what I consider to be an over-dramatized story. Farhadi is a capable director and there are a couple of stunning compositions where Farhadi strays from his usual social realism and hints at something more poetic. Farhadi is interested in human psychology and relational twists but in this movie this interest turns into soap opera, unnecessary plot embellishments and well, in general, too much stuff. A man goes to see his ex-wife in France. She lives with three tense kids and a new boyfriend. From the get-go, there are numerous tensions and we instantaneously realize that theirs must have been a bumpy relationship. The beginning of film is rather captivating because one knows so little and Farhadi skillfully makes us guess, wonder and re-think: what's going on with these people? Why are they so angry? What has happened to them? Here, the small details of people who don't get along are focused on, and many times it works. The second part of the movie is a mess of new threads, Big Feelings, Big Secrets & Revelations (Farhadi shows how social technology can be easily integrated into melodramas), and none of this feels very real. My attention went all over the place and maybe my erratic psychological set-up is not to blame exclusively.