The Past: Struggle to pass over

In his recent French film The Past (2013), Academy award winning Iranian director Asghar Faradhi, carefully constructs a world of conflicted characters and fragmented relationships. Reminiscent of the Oscar award winning A Separation, this movie delves into the lives of a soon-to-be-divorced couple and explores the ripples created by their estrangement.

In the film, a French woman, Marie (Berenice Bejo) and an Iranian man, Ahmed (Ali Mosaffa), have been separated for four years.  The impetus to finalise their divorce occurs when Marie starts a new relationship with an Arab man, Samir (Tahar Rahim). While the relationship between Marie and Ahmad shows the flickering sparks of being an old married couple who have grown apart, the relatively nascent romance between Marie and Samir is tenuous and fraught with uncertainty. 

The strained dynamic between these three individuals is compounded by the fact that Samir is married and his wife is comatose. Furthermore, Marie’s daughters from a previous marriage (preceding her marriage to Ahmed) and Samir’s son are caught in the fray, struggling to grapple with the choices of their parents.  As the characters in the film negotiate their present realities, they are paralysed by their own pasts.

Faradhi peels off the layers of every character to expose the fears and truths that lie at their core. The characters in the film are inextricably bound to each other and their seemingly simple acts prove to have catastrophic consequences.  The director skilfully offers the audience a vantage point from which to explore these individuals and their revelations.

The French-Argentine actress Berenice Bejo (who gained renown for her role in The Artist) displays her versatility as the distraught and melancholic Marie. Ali Mosaffa’s character Ahmed is eager for resolution and evokes sympathy, becoming the perfect foil to Bejo. Elyes Aguis, who plays Samir’s young son Faoud, also delivers a heart-wrenching and noteworthy performance.

Director: Asghar Farhadi

Farhadi is a masterful storyteller with a flair for showcasing the nuances of human sentiments. What differentiates Faradhi’s film from the works of his directorial predecessors of the Iranian New Wave like Majidi or Kirostami, is that he extracts his protagonist (Ahmed) from the Iranian homeland. The movie unfolds in a quaintly French setting but maintains Iran as a motif. Farhadi creates a world where he explores the ideas of love, loss, remorse, tragedy and hope. His camera work, like that of Jon-Luc Godard, is unobtrusive. His portrayal of characters, like the films of Jon Renoir, is deeply humanist.

Subtle symbolism punctuates the movie. An ongoing renovation takes place in Marie’s home throughout the film, symbolic of the repairs that are due in her own personal life. In another scene, glass chandeliers jolt precariously in the back seat as Marie and Samir drive their car, representing the fragility of their relationship. Lastly, as Samir visits his wife in the hospital, her life hangs in the balance, as does the future of all the relationships between the various characters in the film.

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The Past fortifies Farhadi’s position as a ground-breaking film-maker with a definitive perspective on the human condition. It is Iran’s entry to the 86th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Whether or not it earns Farhadi his second Oscar award, it remains a testament to his directorial prowess.   

- Parinitha Shinde

The Song of Sparrows: Honesty pays!

Here is yet another brilliant rendition of Iranian new wave by the master Iranian director, Majid Majidi. It is a typical Iranian film, sensitive with its ordinary life portrayal of a poor family. The father Karim, played intensely by Reza Naji, struggles hard to make ends meet. In the bargain, though, he loses his job in the ostrich farm, as an ostrich escapes from his care. Further, he also fractures his leg in a freak accident. However, what keeps him going and what, perhaps, helps him face life as it is, is his never compromising honesty and his deep love for his family and children. He is unsophisticated; but Karim can strike a deep chord. He reminds us of Ricci of De Sica’s Bicycle Thief. However, the only difference is that while Ricci is driven to sin in the face of helplessness, Karim fights helplessness with determination and hope.

Director: Majid Majidi

Film Clip

Majidi, as usual, gives masterly touch to this film as well. The journey motif that is a characteristic feature of most of Iranian films is predominant in this film too, where we see Karim journeying physically and metaphorically into places and circumstances which he would otherwise not have intended. Some of the shots in the film are just breathtaking. For example the splatter of fish in the tub as it is dropped by the children; or another shot of Karim carrying a door in the vastness of a field. This sensitive film will go a long way in re affirming the beauty that life is. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

The Father: 'killing' a step parent!

One wonders how Iran could produce such wonderful films. The answer perhaps lies in the fact that the limitations posed by the state on film makers have been converted into strengths of the film industry in Iran. Majid Majidi is one such director who can be termed as one of the most creative geniuses of film language.

Director: Majid Majidi

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His 1996 film The Father (Pedar) is a fine example of this. As usual, his themes are very simple. But the way he puts these themes into the film language, creating visual images in each frame, is just inimitable. The story of The Father is indeed not so much of a father, but of a son Mehrolloah. He has lost his real father in an accident and has difficulties accepting his step father whom his mother has married without his knowledge. This is because Mehrollah has been away working to support the family – his mother and three sisters – after the death of his father. Once he comes to know of the entry of the step father into the family, he wants to kill him as Mehrollah thinks that he is a bad man.

What happens in his pursuit of devising plans to kill his father is indeed surprises you and thus it is best not describe it here, lest the pleasure of a visual experience be taken away from the readers who would like to watch the film. However, the way Majidi unravels the true selves of each of the characters – especially the son and the step father – is very unique. There is symbolism, as usual; but it is not a forced symbolism as in many contemporary Indian off-beat films. Metaphors and symbols just emerge as the story unfolds. That is possible only when a director allows the visuals to flow rather than intrude and impose violence to the natural flow.

A film becomes an eternal piece of art only when every shot in it is in the right place and in the right balance. The Father is one such film!

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

A Separation: visuals speak more than words!

There are few movies which remain etched in the collective conscience of its audience long after they have been watched. These movies provoke thought, elicit questions and provide no easy answers. A Separation, the Iranian film which won the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Oscars, is one such movie.

A Separation is a courageous attempt, given the circumstances of cultural and artistic repression that exist in Iran. It is a movie about a crumbling marriage between Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Moaadi). Simin wants to leave the country in order to create a better life for their daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), but Nader is committed to staying back in Tehran to look after his ailing father who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. In the opening scene, the couple looks directly into the camera and pleads their case to a judge, an imaginary substitute for the audience. It is this incident that precedes the dissolution of their marriage and triggers off a series of events. 

Director Asghar Farhadi

Film trailer

Nader hires a maid named Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a deeply pious woman, to look after his father. Razieh has a young daughter and is carrying another child along the way. She works to ease the financial burden of her debt-ridden husband. However, after a fateful incident, she loses her child. Subsequently, the characters in the movie grapple with law, religion and human sentiment to find out who should be held responsible for the loss of the child. 

When A Separation is placed in the context of the Iranian New Wave, one can see a metamorphosis of this cinematic movement which began in 1969. Gone is the world of Majid Majidi, Kiarostami or Jafar Panhai, where we see reality from the redeeming and innocent eyes of children.

The director Asghar Farhadi’s camera work is to be admired and studied. The mis-en-scence is crafted to externally depict the inner conflicts of the characters. The editing of the film, with ample cut aways and jump cuts is perfect and seamless. The shots also depict the class conflict that exists in Tehran, represented by the differences in the colourful and upper-middle class apartment of Nader to the run-down and poverty-ridden residence of Razieh. 

- Parinitha Shinde