A Separation

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is my year long challenge, to go boldly where many have gone before, or a film a day for 365 days. Join me as I soak up as much movie goodness as possible. Day 13 of 365 Week 2: Mental Health ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This award-winning Iranian drama is not only an insight into Iran as it stands today but humanity as a whole. More than that, the film is beautifully deceptive, containing within its simple, minimalist approach, an endless grey area, where every layer, thought and question is given time to breathe and evolve. Opening and closing in court, A Separation is framed by the gradual separation and divorce of a family. Leila Hatami's Simin is seeking to relocate her family outside Iran and provide a better life for her daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). Meanwhile, her husband Nader (Peyman Mooadi) wishes to stay because of his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) who suffers from Alzheimer's. When Simin leaves and moves back in with her mother, Nader is forced to find a carer for his father, thus enters Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a four and a half month pregnant mother. Over a number of days which sees the already stressed mother take on more and more tasks, she seeks to involve her husband Hojjat (Shahab Hosseini) but is forced to take the job alone as he finds himself at the mercy of lenders. One day, Nader comes home to find his father tied to the bed and in a poor way. Nader and Razieh become involved in an argument that sees her thrown out of her apartment. MINOR SPOILERS Here the film becomes something else entirely as the two families fight in court over the matter of Razieh's miscarriage. The fighting only drives the families further apart with the initially ambivalent Nader and Simin becoming set in their separation. The film appears simple in that it is, at its core, a family drama wrapped around a trial. A Separation however, goes so much further. It explores family, gender, morality, justice, truth, responsibility, class and, at least for our Western society, it challenged my notion of what we define as a living being. N.b.: I am a philosophy student and have grappled with what we define as being a human. To this end, we as a society do not generally tend to accept a four and a half month in utero foetus as legally living and thus being a victim of murder. Regardless, in exploring these ideas, we not only come to see and understand Iranian society as it is but also reflect upon these ideas in our own contexts. Legally, morally and religiously, the husband still controls the family, but Simin and Razieh are not without agency, nor are they simply catalysts for the drama to come. More than that, in the face of Nader and Hojjat's inflexible pride and honour, they are the reasonable parties attempting to resolve the matter and keep their respective families together. Impressively, and it may have the added bonus of my ignorance towards the cast, but each of the principal five cast is effortlessly natural and real in their roles. There is no evidence of acting, rather the actors become their characters and bring to life a seemingly banal and simple story with such complexity and emotion. Given that similar Western films become trapped in their own stardom and melodrama, thus being fairly light and shallow, A Separation stands out as an effortlessly more complex and intimate. This is not necessarily a film I look forward to watching repeatedly, but it is a film that will undoubtedly stay with me. The questions aren't always answered and the answers you may come to may not always be easy, but the film invites you to look at something so confident and culturally specific, yet universally applicable.