REVIEW: The Past (2014)

With About Elly and A Separation, Asghar Farhadi proved himself to be one of the most interesting and exciting cinematic talents to come out of Iran. With The Past, his first film made outside of Iran, Farhadi has made another powerfully humane and non-judgemental drama about people.

The plot of The Past, like that of any Farhadi film, is difficult to describe since it is best to watch the film with no prior knowledge, all the better to appreciate how intricately the story unravels. Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns to Paris from Tehran and is picked up by his wife Marie (Bérénice Bejo). Ahmad has returned in order to sign divorce papers so that Marie may marry her new boyfriend, Samir (Tahar Rahim). However, there may be more than one reason for Marie’s insistence that Ahmad return. Equally, there seems to be something wrong with the three children living under Marie’s roof – her two daughters Lucie and Léa (Pauline Burlet and Jeanne Jestin) and Samir’s son Fouad (Elyes Aguis). Ahmad, playing the peacekeeper, slowly but surely unravels a whole host of dark secrets and resentments.

Not the best synopsis ever written – and that is primarily because I don’t think they really matter – but the joy (if it can be called that) of a Farhadi film has always been in their unravelling, challenging the presumptions that the viewer may place on the plot and the characters, only for him or her to realize that they are completely wrong and things are much more complex than their simplistic, and possibly prejudiced, generalisations would suggest. As in A Separation, in which the apparent villain (played by Shahab Hosseini) castigates his accusers – and, hence, the audience – for finding it so easy to blame him, The Past challenges the audience to rethink their initial impressions of each character. As a result, the badly behaved Fouad is revealed to have been deeply disturbed by something he has witnessed, the seemingly unstable Marie is helplessly trapped with a horrible dilemma and the tough Samir is suffering from either extreme guilt or extreme remorse. The Past is a very well constructed and moving drama, but it is also a call for greater communication and understanding – Ahmad is often seen telling people to sit down and talk things through. As in A Separation, there is no overtly guilty party, simply a group of people trying to do what they think is right.

With The Past, Farhadi in some ways hones his craft even further. Large parts of the film are set under one roof and the film’s focus is on the difficulties of one family – albeit one extended and complicated by divorce. The film begins slowly, with everyday arguments about being late and bad parking giving an initial clue that everything is not quite all right in this household. Ahmad and Samir’s first meeting is subtly played as a comic macho challenge as Ahmad fixes a blocking pipe, irritating and offending Samir. Ultimately, the entire drama is based on the repercussions of a stained dress – a seemingly mundane object, which causes a deeply volatile situation to explode out in several directions.

The performances – as can be expected now from a Farhadi film – are uniformly excellent. Bejo won the Best Actress prize at Cannes, doing very well with a role that is, frankly, underwritten. A Separation has already proven Farhadi’s ability to get great performances from child actors, but one scene set in the subway in which Samir has to tell Fouad some difficult truths contains a brilliant performance from Elyes Aguis, particularly when one considers the difficulty of the scene and the fact that it is filmed in long takes. Rahim and Mosaffa are also both fantastic as well. Everyone plays what are clearly intended to be ‘real people’, with great subtlety and honesty and without patronising or mocking.

Arguably, The Past is simply a film about people in difficult situations – it does not really have the contemporary significance or national critique of About Elly or A Separation (although its presence in these two films may have been exaggerated by a Western media preferring to see everything from Iran as a comment specifically on Iran). It is a humane and sympathetic drama, tightly structured and scripted, emotionally draining and full of great performances. Though ultimatley less successful than Farhadi’s previous two films – both of which have better developed female characters – The Past is a great drama about the need for compassion, trust and understanding.

See also:
This is Not a Film
Like Someone In Love

REVIEW: A Separation (2011)

  A Separation is the fifth film by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi. With the film’s full title being Nader and Simin: A Separation, it is a film that deals with a divorce and the consequences that follow.

  The opening scene is filmed in one shot with the two leads Nader and Simin (the fantastic Peyman Moadi and Leila Hatami) arguing about their case in front of an impartial third party. The camera is angled from the perspective of the judge and the placement of the actors is carefully symmetrical. As the judge is left unseen, the audience is put, from the very beginning, in a judicial role. It is up to us to decide which character is most worthy of our sympathy as the film plays out.

  Independent-minded and politically aware Simin requests the divorce so that she can escape from the country, which Nader refuses to do due to his responsibilities to his ailing father, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. It is clear that, though they are divorcing, they both still have a lot of affection for each other. Simin does not leave the country, however, waiting on their daughter (played by the director’s own daughter, Sarina Farhadi) who has been left to decide who she wants to live with. This paves the way for the arrival of a second couple, Hodjat and Razieh (the also-fantastic Shahab Hosseini and Sareh Bayat). Nader hires the devout Razieh to care for his father, but it is not long before a dispute sees him throwing her out of his house in anger. From here on, things become much more complex.

  The film examines many facets of separation in Iranian society, separations between law and compassion, religion and human decency, class and equality, pride and fulfilment and tradition and progression. Without it ever being said, Simin’s reasons for wanting to leave the country are clear and much is made of Razieh’s faith getting in the way of her ability to carry out all that Nader’s father needs. As a result, every character has their reasons and deciding who to blame and who to sympathize with becomes impossible. The film features several scenes in which the characters must justify their actions to a judge, who has to sift through the details of the ensuing accusations. Like most court room-based films, it is engrossing drama, but A Separation has much more than that to offer. As the film constantly plays with your sympathies, it becomes clear that life is just not as black and white as many films would like you to believe. Even the film’s most apparent ‘bad guy’ becomes the film’s most pathetic.

  This makes A Separation a powerfully human film; one that accepts its characters at face value and is not afraid to create an impossible situation, one where no one will win and nothing will be wrapped up with a neat little bow. The film ends like it begins, with the audience having to decide for themselves, though by the end they are even less equipped to decide who most deserves to get what they want.

  A Separation is a subtle critique on traditional values, seeing them as sustaining their own existence by the avoidance of compassion and acceptance. But it is also a film that deals with some very difficult subject matter and does it truthfully and with much sincerity. Unlike many films of this sort, it also has the courage of its convictions, right through to the end, making it a remarkable and emotionally draining experience.