A Separation begins and ends in a similar way: a seemingly insurmountable, superficially minute amount of space in the labyrinthine corridors of the Iranian judicial system. To begin Simin and Nader plead their case to an off-screen interrogator (Babak Karimi) who sits precisely at the camera’s lens. He is seen throughout the rest of the movie – again until the final penultimate scene – but in this moment, he is embodied by the audience, and we are tasked with sorting out this murky situation:
Believing that her daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) will eventually be intellectually constrained by life in Iran, Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to move her family to another country. However, Nader (Peyman Naadi), her husband, refuses to leave behind his father, a deteriorating Alzheimer’s patient whose lucidity incrementally declines from poor to nearly absent throughout the movie. Despite his refusal to move, Nader grants Simin a divorce, and, as they wait for Termeh to decide which parent she would rather live with, as per Iranian law, Simin stays with her mother, thus, leaving no one to care for the grandfather when Nader is at work and Termeh is at school.
It’s difficult to take one side in this proceeding, but something interesting is Simin’s use of Termeh as her means of escaping Iran. This isn’t depicted with malice or in a manipulative sense, but one gets the impression that Simin wishes flee much more than Termeh. Her hair is dyed a brilliant shade of red and she wears her hijab casually as if it’s an accessory rather than a cultural symbol of modesty and morality or a mandate. This does not make her a blaspheme or a rabble rouser – she shows the same secular values as anyone else throughout the film – but it does suggest that her motive is two-fold. However, it’s difficult to chastise her for this; as a young woman growing up in Iran, she knows her limitations, and she knows Termeh’s most likely fate: she may not be relegated to the role of housewife – other women in this film work as teachers, caregivers, etc. – but her intellectual potential could very well be stymied.
At the same time, it is similarly impossible to pillory Nader for his choice to stay with his ailing father. Death is imminent, and, in a compassionate way, we hope it comes sooner rather than later: his father is a septuagenarian toddler, decreasingly toilet trained, unable to wash himself or clearly communicate, his curiosity – or more aptly, confusion – takes him from the house or into danger. We feel for Nader, but, like the rest of the characters, realize the futility of his actions.
Because of this rift, someone needs to replace Simin’s presence in the home while Nader is at work. This someone comes in the form of Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a young woman whose “hot-tempered” husband has been laid off and, as of late, in trouble with various creditors. Here, the repercussions of the separation have their first apparent toll in that Razieh is really in no condition to take care of an ailing man with dementia. She’s pregnant and commuting three hours a day with child in tow, but she has no other opportunity because her Hodjat, her husband, seems increasingly unemployable. During one arbitrary afternoon, Termeh and Nader come home early to find the door locked and the apartment empty – aside from his father whose arm has been tied to the head board of his bed. The arm has been held in place, but the father has tumbled to the floor and appears close to death, his oxygen mask askewly resting on his cheek. Nader manages to revive him, and while doing so, Razieh enters and a foreseeable argument ensues with Nader accusing her of stealing the money he had in his dresser. Vehemently, she denies the charges, but the argument crescendos with Nader pushing her protesting body from the door frame by her shoulder. Razieh’s thudding body is heard on the stairs, and suddenly, the Iranian judicial system and its interrogator are tasked with whether or not to charge Nader with murdering and unborn child.
This transition is also where “a separation” becomes a multitude of separations inasmuch as the movie is less about marital distress and more of a discourse on status. Whereas Nader is a banker, Hodjat, his accuser, is a laid off cobbler, a useful but antiquated craft in the service industry. Hodjat and Razieh live in the equivalent to a tenement building, apartments crammed and stacked on top of one another, clothes lines hung between the balconies, a dozen motor scooters gathered together in a makeshift parking lot – Nader drives a sedan; he and his daughter live in a spacious apartment complex with French doors.
Through this lens, Hodjat’s hot temper is understandable – justice serves those who are deemed important and who can afford it. This latest tragedy to befall their family merely inches him close to the end of his tether.
With this look at class, A Separation also explores the conflict between faith and necessity. Razieh is extremely devout, so much so that she calls an imam to inquire whether she can change Nader’s father’s pants after he’s defecated on himself because he is unable to do so. Ultimately, she’s given permission but only because it is a dire situation causing the father discomfort. This conflict emerges throughout when swearing a “truth” on the Quran is invoked a number of times.
The various themes presented here flow smoothly from one to the next, occasionally folding onto one another, but to its credit, A Separation never becomes convoluted and overly complex; it’s an intelligently written film, but the dialog is simple. What’s even more enthralling about this film is that it dispels a number of stereotypes we might hold about Iran. For many of us, the most exposure we have to Iran are the recurrent diatribes between our respective governments, the threat of nuclear armament, or the sound byted proclamations that the Holocaust never happened or that homosexuals don’t exist in Iran. These projections often imagine a misogynist country ripe with beatings and woman concealed from head to foot. Here, A Separation, an Iranian film made for Iranians avoids these stereotypes, and we’re given people – more appropriately, humans with emotions, conflicts, issues, and concerns. Certainly, there is an overarching faith impelling many of their actions – and one that is mostly unfamiliar to us – but one that is presented as a part of life, not a prison sentence.
In the end, the film is fantastically written and powerfully acted, but what piqued my interest the most were the audience reactions to certain moments within the film, particularly when Razieh calls her imam, or God’s name is invoked as a source of potential damnation. Snickers rippled around me, and I realized that – even in a cultural stew like New York City – a large portion of this movie (whether it’s intentional or unintentional) illustrates the gulf we see between ourselves and our Iranian counterparts – for better or worse. Neither culture is castigated, but neither is beatified.
