I am a sucker for critical consensus. I try to check out anything that get universally good reviews. Usually this results in seeing something that's difficult and not really all that good, as a bunch of over-stimulated movie or music nerds decided that it was "Deep" and anyone who doesn't like it doesn't get it. So I rent the movie, watch the movie, and wonder why it was so praised.
A Separation is not that movie.
Do you root for the guy caring for his father, or the lady trying to give her daughter a better future?
Filmed in Iran, A Separation is the kind of movie that reminds you what art is. The film is bare, no music, no special effects, long single-camera shots dominate most scenes. But this only heightens the human drama that makes you ache for these people. At the center of the film is Nader and Simin, and man and a woman (the second Iranian woman I've had a crush on) who are getting divorced because she wants to emigrate and he feels bound to stay to care for his Alzheimer's stricken father. The opening conversation sets the tone for the whole movie as the two explain their reasons for the divorce. She says "He doesn't even know who you are." He only replies, "But I know who he is."
But as one critic put it, "To say A Separation is a movie about divorce is like saying The Wizard of Oz is about a pair of slippers." This movie is so good it hurts. As she leaves he hires a caretaker to watch for his father and eventually, through a string of plot developments and back-stories their lives are entwined with another couple's and they are put at odds. Through the movie you look for a bad guy but none appear. They are put into opposition by sad circumstance and you can see where everyone is coming from as they try to salvage their lives from this mess they're all in. People's lives all contain trials and we are shaped by them, we all have our reasons.
I don't know why I felt I needed to write about this, I'm no movie reviewer but I wanted to write something and since I just saw this movie I wrote about it. If this gets the three of you to go watch this film I'm glad I did.
(PS After I finished this post, my father changed the channel to the RedGreen show. The lesson, as always, nothing is better than the RedGreen show. Nothing. My review seems so silly now.)
