Newton’s Third Law of Motion tells us that to every
action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton was referring to the physical
world, but it would seem that something similar is at work in the metaphysical
world as well. For every action we take as individuals, even when it’s a
personal and private action that seems to only affect ourselves, somewhere
someone else receives some reaction to it. Maybe that’s true. I really don’t
know. But the idea that lives are intertwined with neighbors and family, that
decisions have far-reaching implications beyond immediate gratification is the
central theme of Asghar Farhadi’s brilliant family drama A Separation.
I was not particularly fond of Farhadi’s last film, About Elly, but now that I’ve seen the
full extent of the subjects he’s interested in presented in a film this
powerful and absorbing, I understand the previous film a little more. The
separation of the title immediately refers to the marriage between Nader (Peyman
Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami). She is asking for a divorce because they have
already gone through the extensive process of procuring a visa to live in
another country, they have forty days before it expires, and he’s refusing to
leave Iran because his father, stricken with Alzheimer’s, needs constant care.
Simin is not content to raise their 11-year-old daughter, Termeh, in a country
where she has no future.
Farhadi places his camera in the objective position of
the state official they’ve brought their case to. Neither party is placed in a more
favorable light. We can sympathize with both positions. Nader and Simin are
each right and they are each wrong. This scene with its shades of gray sets up
the difficult reality of decisions and consequences featured in the story. How
is truth decided when each person has their own take on a particular situation?
How is justice meted out with regard to truths that should be objective but are
so often found to be subjective? And when justice for one party means injustice
for the other, what is the fair decision? Life is not lived on one side or the
other, but rather somewhere on a spectrum between just and unjust, right and
wrong. Farhadi’s intricately woven and complex screenplay understands this
instinctively.
Simin moves out of the house, leaving Termeh with Nader,
who refuses to give his permission for her to go. Her moving out has a deeper
motivation in her desire for Nader to simply express his wish that she stay.
Because Simin is no longer around to look after Nader’s father, he is forced to
hire a woman to come every day. This sets up the central conflict. He hires
Razieh (Sareh Bayat), who is 4 months pregnant, has a husband out of work, and
brings her 4-year-old daughter with her. She is rather unprepared for the task
of looking after an elderly man who sometimes can’t make it to the bathroom.
Coming from a standpoint that finds religious fundamentalism completely
bizarre, I can’t help but feel disturbed by a culture that causes a woman to
call a religious counselor to ask if it’s a sin for her to undress and clean a
man who has wet himself.
On about the third day of work, Nader comes home to find
the house locked and his father on the bedside floor with his hand tied to the
bed post. He is justifiably angry when Razieh returns claiming she had to run
some errands. He also discovers some missing money and makes an accusation
demanding she leave immediately. Razieh is concerned with honor and justice and
so refuses to go until he retracts his accusation. Nader shoves her out the
door, perhaps a little more forcefully than he should have especially
considering her condition. Later he learns she’s in the hospital and has lost
her baby. She and her husband Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini) file charges of murder
against him and so witnesses are brought in and angry accusations are hurled
back and forth.
The issue is whether or not Nader knew she was pregnant.
There is reason to suspect he did, but equally strong evidence to believe he
didn’t. If he sits in jail awaiting bail, then there’s no one to look after his
father. If he’s found guilty he could go to prison for one to three years, and
who knows what consequences there would be for his daughter? If he pays blood
money to Razieh and Hodjat, who has debts that make some of his motivations
suspect, then justice has not been served because he will be admitting guilt
unjustifiably. Hodjat feels he deserves justice for the loss of his unborn
child. If he doesn’t receive compensation, his family will be ruined.
Farhadi’s screenplay looks at this problem from various
angles even though the protagonists are Nader and his family. There is no resolution
that has everyone coming out the other end better or feeling like justice has
been served. Razieh is in many ways the most interesting character because she
claims she was pushed hard enough to fall down the stairs, but the physical
layout of the door and staircase would suggest the impossibility of such a
fall. Is she lying? To what end? The only fact in the case is that she lost her
baby. Is she concealing something?
This is undoubtedly one of the best movies I’ve seen in a
long time. I’m continually finding that the most interesting films are coming
out of other countries, where film makers have great storytelling skills and
have learned the craft of movie making without the formulas found in studio
films. Farhadi writes his characters not as heroes and villains in an
extraordinary circumstance, but as ordinary people dealing with the realities
of life. The four adults at the center of the story are generally decent people
(although an argument can be made for Hodjat being the least sympathetic with
his outbursts of anger) who have decisions to make with far-reaching
consequences. This is the stuff of life. And everything can be tied back to the
separation begun in the first scene, a decision that sets in motion a chain
reaction that leads to an altercation and the loss of a baby. But we know it’s
not fair to blame it all on Simin, even if Nader implicates her at one point.
She made what she thought was the best decision at the time, as we all try to
do.
The final scene of the film is of Termeh called forth to
announce her decision about which parent she chooses to live with. The scene is
drawn out to create tension, but ultimately Farhadi doesn’t go for any simple
conclusion. The shot that closes the film is a perfect summation of the divide
between Nader and Simin and the fact that no life-altering decision is easy or
necessarily right.
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