| A Separation | |
|---|---|
.png) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Asghar Farhadi |
| Written by | Asghar Farhadi |
| Produced by | Asghar Farhadi |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Mahmoud Kalari |
| Edited by | Hayedeh Safiyari |
| Music by | Sattar Oraki |
| Distributed by | Filmiran |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 123 minutes[1] |
| Country | Iran |
| Language | Persian |
| Budget | $800,000[2] |
| Box office | $24.4 million[2] |
A Separation (Persian:جدایی نادر از سیمین,romanized: Jodāi-e Nāder az Simin;lit. 'The Separation of Nader from Simin'; also titledNader and Simin, A Separation) is a 2011 Iraniandrama film written and directed byAsghar Farhadi, starringLeila Hatami,Peyman Moaadi,Shahab Hosseini,Sareh Bayat, andSarina Farhadi. It focuses on an Iranianmiddle-class couple who separate, the disappointment and desperation suffered by their daughter due to the egotistical disputes and separation of her parents, and the conflicts that arise when the husband hires alower-classcaregiver for his elderly father, who suffers fromAlzheimer's disease.
A Separation won theAcademy Award forBest Foreign Language Film in 2012, becoming the first Iranian film to win the award.[3] It received theGolden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bears forBest Actress andBest Actor at the61st Berlin International Film Festival, becoming the first Iranian film to win the Golden Bear.[4] It also won the Golden Globe forBest Foreign Language Film[5] and theAsia Pacific Screen Award for Best Feature Film.[6] The film was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay,[7] making it thefirst non-English film in five years to achieve this.
Nader, Simin, and their 10-year-old daughter, Termeh, are an upper-middle-class family living in a flat inTehran. Simin wants the whole family to leaveIran and has prepared the visas, but Nader wishes to stay to care for his father, who lives with them, and hasAlzheimer's disease. Simin therefore files fordivorce, but thefamily court considers the grounds to be insufficient and rejects the application. Simin moves back to her parents’ home and Termeh stays with her father.
Nader hires Razieh, a deeply religious woman from a poor and distant suburb, to take care of his father during the day. She comes each day with her young daughter, Somayeh. She soon finds that she cannot cope, in particular because the old man has become incontinent. One day, when Razieh and Somayeh are busy, he slips out and wanders in the street. Razieh hastens out and dodges through the traffic to get to him.
The next day, Nader and Termeh come home early and discover the old man lying unconscious on the floor in his bedroom, tied to the bed. Razieh and Somayeh are out. When they return, Razieh says she had some urgent personal business; Nader accuses her of neglecting his father and stealing some money (which Simin had in fact used to pay somemovers). When Razieh refuses to leave until he pays her, he pushes her out of the flat. She apparently falls down some steps. Nader and Simin later learn that Razieh has suffered amiscarriage.
If Nader knew of Razieh's pregnancy and caused the miscarriage, he could be guilty of murder. There is now a series of claims and counter-claims before a criminal judge: on one side, Nader, with Simin and Termeh; on the other, Razieh and her husband, Hodjat. He is a hot-tempered man, embittered and humiliated by the loss of his long-time job as a cobbler, and harassed by creditors. More than once, he attempts to assault Nader.
Razieh says that Nader knew of her pregnancy because he heard a conversation in the flat between her and Termeh's tutor, in which the tutor recommended a doctor to her. Nader denies this, and the tutor gives evidence in his support. Termeh finds reasons to believe this is not true, and Nader at last admits to her that he has lied for her sake and his father's: he cannot go to prison. The tutor withdraws her evidence. To protect her father, Termeh tells the judge that her father did not know of the pregnancy until she told him.
Nader claims that when he pushed Razieh out of the flat, she could not have fallen down the steps, but would have been protected by the railing. Razieh confesses to Simin that when she went out to bring back the old man, she was hit by a car and was in pain that night; this was the day before Nader pushed her, and she had gone out that day to see a doctor.
Hodjat is violent, and Simin fears for Termeh's safety. Simin persuades Nader to make a payment to Hodjat, but Nader first asks Razieh to swear on theQur'an that he is the cause of her miscarriage. She cannot do so. Hodjat cannot force her, and begins hitting himself in a rage.
Later, at the family court, Nader and Simin are granted a divorce. As the film ends, they wait separately outside the court while Termeh tells the judge which parent she chooses to live with.
The concept came from a number of personal experiences and abstract pictures which had been inAsghar Farhadi's mind for some time. Once he decided to make the film, about a year before it premiered, it was quickly written and financed. Farhadi described the film as the "logical development" from his previous film,About Elly. Like Farhadi's last three films,A Separation was made without any government support. The financing went without trouble much thanks to the success ofAbout Elly.[8] The production was grantedUS$25,000 in support from theMotion Picture Association'sAPSA Academy Film Fund.[9]
In September 2010, Farhadi was banned from making the film by the IranianMinistry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, because of an acceptance speech held during an award ceremony where he expressed support for several Iranian film personalities. Notably he had wished to see the return to Iranian cinema ofMohsen Makhmalbaf, an exiled filmmaker and Iranian opposition profile, and of the imprisoned political filmmakerJafar Panahi, both of whom had been connected to theIranian Green Movement. The ban was lifted in the beginning of October after Farhadi claimed to have been misperceived and apologized for his remarks.[10]
Thefilm premiered on 9 February 2011 at the 29thFajr International Film Festival in Tehran.[11] Six days later it played in Competition at the61st Berlin International Film Festival.[12] Farhadi had previously competed at thefestival's 2009 edition withAbout Elly, for which he had received theSilver Bear for Best Director.[10]A Separation was distributed in Iran through Filmiran.[13] Distribution rights for the United Kingdom were acquired byArtificial Eye.[14]
As of 17 April 2014,A Separation has grossed worldwide over $24 million on an estimated budget of just $800,000, making it a box-office success.[2]
The film has been met with universal acclaim from film critics. It currently holds a 99% "fresh" rating onRotten Tomatoes, based on 176 reviews with an average rating of 8.90/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Morally complex, suspenseful, and consistently involving,A Separation captures the messiness of a dissolving relationship with keen insight and searing intensity",[15] as well as a score of 95 onMetacritic based on 41 reviews,[16] making it the best-reviewed film of 2011.[17]
Deborah Young ofThe Hollywood Reporter wrote from the Berlinale:
Just when it seemed impossible for Iranian filmmakers to express themselves meaningfully outside the bounds of censorship, Asghar Farhadi'sNader and Simin, A Separation comes along to prove the contrary. Apparently simple on a narrative level yet morally, psychologically and socially complex, it succeeds in bringing Iranian society into focus for in a way few other films have done.
Young noted how Farhadi portrayed Iran's social and religious divisions, and complimented the film's craft:
As in all the director's work, the cast is given top consideration and their realistic acting results in unusual depth of characterization. All five main actors stand out sharply in Mahmood Kalari's intimate cinematography. Though the film lasts over two hours, Hayedeh Safiyari's fast-moving editing keeps the action tensely involving from start to finish.[18]
In a strongly positive review fromScreen Daily, Lee Marshall wrote:
Showing a control of investigative pacing that recalls classic Hitchcock and a feel for ethical nuance that is all his own, Farhadi has hit upon a story that is not only about men and women, children and parents, justice and religion in today's Iran, but that raises complex and globally relevant questions of responsibility, of the subjectivity and contingency of "telling the truth", and of how thin the line can be between inflexibility and pride – especially of the male variety – and selfishness and tyranny.[19]
Alissa Simon fromVariety called it Farhadi's strongest work yet and described it:
Tense and narratively complex, formally dense and morally challenging... The provocative plot casts a revealing light on contempo Iranian society, taking on issues of gender, class, justice and honor as a secular middle-class family in the midst of upheaval winds up in conflict with an impoverished religious one.[20]
David Thomson forThe New Republic wrote:
You cannot watch the film without feeling kinship with the characters and admitting their decency as well as their mistakes. The American films made this year that deal with the internal detail and difficulty of family life – likeThe Descendants — are airy, pretty and affluent compared withA Separation. With the best will in the world,George Clooney cannot discard his aura of stardom, yet the actors in the Iranian film seem caught in their characters' traps.[21]
The film won the Fajr Film Festival'sCrystal Simorghs for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematographer and Best Sound Recorder. It also received the Audience Favourite Film award.[22] It won the top award, theGolden Bear for Best Film, at the61st Berlin International Film Festival. The actress ensemble received theSilver Bear for Best Actress, and the actor ensemble theSilver Bear for Best Actor. In addition it received the Competition Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and theBerliner Morgenpost Readers' Prize.[23]Isabella Rossellini, the Jury president of the Berlin International Film Festival, said that the choice of Farhadi's film for the Golden Bear was "pretty unanimous".[4] Farhadi commented that he never would have thought he would win the Golden Bear, and that the film's victory offered "a very good opportunity to think of the people of my country, the country I grew up in, the country where I learned my stories – a great people".[24] Ahmad Miralaii, the director of Iran's Farabi Cinematic Foundation, said that "Iranian cinema is proud of the awards", as he welcomed Farhadi at the airport upon the director's return from Berlin.[13]
A Separation was voted the second best film of 2011 in the annualSight & Sound critic poll,[25] as well as in theLA Weekly Film Poll 2011.[26] The film was also voted No. 3 in the annualindieWire critic survey for 2011,[27] No. 4 in the 2011 poll byFilm Comment,[28] and was ranked No. 5 onPaste magazine's 50 Best Movies of 2011.[29]Roger Ebert ranked the film No. 1 on his The Best Films of 2011 list and wrote: "A Separation will become one of those enduring masterpieces watched decades from now".[30] In 2024,Looper ranked it number 7 on its list of the "50 Best PG-13 Movies of All Time," writing "While you can't go wrong with any Farhadi movie,A Separation is an especially strong and thoughtful achievement from this artist."[31]
Iranian criticMassoud Farasati, whose views are close to those of the Islamic regime, said "The image of our society thatA Separation depicts isthe dirty picture westerners are wishing for".[32]
Steven Spielberg stated he believed the film to be the best of that year by a wide margin. Other admirers of the film includedWoody Allen who called Farhadi to congratulate him on the film.David Fincher,Meryl Streep,Brad Pitt, andAngelina Jolie spoke to Farhadi during the awards season each offering their praise for him and the film.[33]
The film has appeared on numerous critics' top ten lists for 2011,[34] some notable of which are the following:
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Sight & Sound magazine included the film in its list of "30 great films of the 2000s".[37]A Separation was later named theninth-greatest film of the 21st century in a 2016BBC critics' poll.[38] In 2018 the film was ranked 21st in the BBC's list of The 100 greatest foreign language films of all time.[39] In 2019,The Guardian ranked the film 36th in its 100 best films of the 21st century list.[40] In 2022Sight and Sound ranked the film 72th in its Directors' 100 Greatest Films of All Time list[41]
^[I] Each date is linked to the article about the awards held that year wherever possible.
