A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمین)

This post is long overdue. It’s about time I report to you on A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمین), a movie I watched while visiting a friend in Dallas last weekend.

In general, if I report on something, it means it won my approval one way or another. So how did A Separation win my approval? Let me count the ways:

It won my approval for its depth and breadth and height

No. Seriously. Enough of the Brownings. Here’s why I recommend this movie:

The cinematography was interesting. The handheld camera technique might cause the audience some discomfort. It certainly did that to my movie partner. However, though this technique is often used haphazardly by movie makers to assert their familiarity with the revival of this school of cinematography in the same way that stream of consciousness is often used haphazardly by modern novelists, this time the technique matched the content, in a rather Wordsworthian content/context symmetry, just not a very Romantic one*.

The story involves, as the title suggests, the separation of Simin and Nader. But notice the indefinite article A in the English translation. It is not without significance. This is not a definite story. The/A separation here is not simply that of Simin and Nader, but that between right and wrong, and the undesirability and complexity of choosing between them. A complexity that is spoon-fed to the audience in the last scene of the movie (But I won’t spoil that for you). This is not a movie about what happens when Simin and Nader separate. This is a movie about what happens when right and good and true are at conflict. An old dilemma when it comes to literature. Should Cathy have stayed a tormented life with Heathcliff as opposed to her decision to try a better life for both of them? Should Jane have accepted Rochester’s marriage proposal that came only after he lost land and sight? Should Frankenstein have created a female monster/partner? Should Dexter’s sister play cop or sister upon discovering her psychopath brother with blood on his hands?  Should the last scene of The Sopranos end the series with the Sopranos apparently living happily ever after? Why does art insist on burdening us with these philosophical questions? Can’t we just be entertained freely?

But I digress and babble.

So the burdening question here is thus:

Having been abandoned by his wife for his refusal to leave Iran and provide his daughter with what would presumably be a better life elsewhere, Nader had to hire Razieh to care for his Alzheimer-inflicted father. The hired help happens to be pregnant. Nadir’s knowledge of that pregnancy was a question soon answered. In a moment of anger probably or probably not justifies, Nader pushes the pregnant woman out of his house, consciously or not so consciously aware of her pregnancy, possibly causing her to tumble down a few stairs. Razieh later sues Nader for the loss of her unborn child. Nadir’s knowledge of her pregnancy is pivotal to the verdict he will receive from judge. As the events unfold, we learn that he might have known about the pregnancy, but with that comes the knowledge that the miscarriage might have been caused by an earlier incident. Doubt. (Shakk). A term Razieh uses quite frequently to refer to her own doubt and therefore possible guilt at framing a man for a miscarriage he was not directly responsible. But this shakk is what the audience is left with as well, epitomized in the brilliant acting of Termeh, Simin and Nadir’s 11 year old daughter, as she struggles to decide whether her father is guilty or not.

Now enough about the content. Let’s go back to the harmony of form and content. In movies we want a good camera, good plot, and good acting. Having vouched for the first two (Read above in case you missed that), let me move to the brilliant acting. The 11 year old referred to in the last paragraph is one example. But other examples are aplenty. The father playing the part of a man with Alzheimer did such a pretty good job that we are left actually considering whether this is indeed an act. Simin is a brilliant actress. And even the young daughter of the hired help masters her role as we see those inquiring eyes looking through doors in an attempt to decipher what is happening in the adult world she lives in.

Good camera. Good acting. Good plot. Dear audience, the verdict is in. Without a shakk this is a great movie.

*Or if you wish, a more philosophical Hegelian concept of the reciprocal revulsion of form and content.

p.s. Simin (Leila Hatami) is a pretty good looking redhead here.