Oscar special: Asghar Farhadi's recipe for cinema — 'A Separation'

Post revolution, there came a phase in Iran when cinema was feared dead. Films were banned en masse, movie halls were shut, filmmakers — portrayed as evil-doers — were forced to flee.

Then Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, the country’s Supreme Leader, quite serendipitously caught Dariush Mehrjui’s Gaav (The Cow) — a film set in rural Iran — on television and decided to ease the noose. Filmmakers could once again do their jobs as long as they adhered to the tight code set by the ministry of culture. Not easy but yes, it is possible to make meaningful cinema without inviting the wrath of a paranoid government, Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (in Persian: Jodái-e Náder az Simin, ‘The separation of Nader from Simin’) proves.

A Separation is a true to life, deceptively simple family tale that will annoy none, puzzle many, and cajole you into questioning notions of truth, right and wrong. Farhadi gently questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual without showing any contempt for accepted standards of honesty or morality.

The film opens with Nader (played by Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami), a modern middle-class Iranian couple, fighting before court for divorce. Simin applied for it as she wants them to emigrate with their 11-year-old daughter, Termeh. Nader doesn’t agree as his father has Alzheimer’s and needs constant care. The court dismisses Simin’s application, and she moves out to her parents’ house. Now, following Simin’s suggestion, Nader hires a caregiver, Razieh, to tend to his father. Razieh is poor, pregnant, has a young daughter and a hot-tempered husband. She has religious qualms about taking care of an incontinent old man. She badly needs the money, and so overlooks her uneasiness. She slips up at work, Nader panics and pushes her out of the house. Next day, Simin hears that Razieh was in hospital. Worried, she and Nader visit and learn that Razieh miscarried. Her husband, Houjat, blames Nader for killing his four-and-a-half-month-old son, and presses man-slaughter charges on him.

That’s just the premise. The rest of the movie, Rashomon-style, is about the truth, or rather the many truths. Every character carries guilt and fear, each scene adds to the tangle, and the crescendo builds. Right and wrong, ego, truth and morality, socio-cultural divide in Iranian society, marital equations, child custody struggle and demands of age-related infirmities form layers that tug at you. Farhadi’s mastery is at how he presents these issues subtly, more as undercurrents. He doesn’t nudge you to the truth or let you take sides. Instead he forces you to puzzle over them. He lets scepticism play but not the Persian brand of cynicism.

Critics have already predicted that A Separation would be an enduring masterpiece. The film has bagged most of the Foreign Language Film awards at earlier ceremonies, and it will be little surprise if the Oscar goes to its kitty as well.

Other contenders

Bullhead
Director: Michael R Roskam
This Belgian drama is a mafia movie about cattle farming and the terrible things that goes wrong with it. It stars Matthias Schoenaerts and won the Best Film Award at the Ostend Film Festival.

Monsieur Lazhar
Director: Philippe Falardeau
This Canadian film tells the story of an Algerian immigrant in Montreal, Bachir Lazhar (played by Mohamed Saïd Fellag) When an elementary school teacher kills herself, Lazhar gets the job. The students are yet to recover from their teacher’s death. Nobody knows of Lazhar’s tragic past.

Footnote
Director: Joseph Cedar
This Israeli film is about a complicated father-son relationship. Eliezer (Shlomo Bar Aba) and Uriel Shkolnik (Lior Ashkenazi) are brilliant scholars and academics. The power struggle begins between the two as the son begins to overshadow his father.

In Darkness
Director: Agnieszka Holland
This Polish drama is based on a book In the Sewers of Lvov by Robert Marshall. The film portrays the story of how Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz), a sewer worker and thief, shelter a group of Jews from the Nazis.