A Separation (2011)

“A Separation” follows two families in modern Iran, at war with and amongst each other, boxed in by iron-clad rules of a sick, empty theocracy. Writer/director Asghar Farhadi makes us a participant in his first, bold scene: A young, devoted married couple nonetheless seeks a divorce, spouting their arguments directly into the camera. Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to raise their daughter in a free nation, while Nader (Peyman Moaadi) insists they stay, to care for his Alzheimer’s stricken father. “He doesn’t know who you are,” she pleads. “But I do,” he says. Within a minute, Farhadi makes his cast fully universal, as he nails the staggering toll of Alzheimer’s on any family. Simin moves out, forcing Nader to hire a caretaker for his father. That hire will cost everyone involved greatly as deceits and fears abound. In brilliant, wordless cutaways, Farhadi uses the pained faces of two girls to show a nation of lost, exasperated adults so fully separated by religion, sex, class, economy, and have and have not, they and it will never move forward. American Christians, take note. Screenplay, cast, camera work, the very feel and noise of Tehran, and that finale ... all flawless. A