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

The Birds – a caging experience

Alfred Hitchcock’s name is almost synonymous with suspense and audiences are sure to experience the thrill of a lifetime watching his 1963 masterpiece The Birds. The film follows a wealthy socialite from San Francisco as she meets an interesting man who piques her curiosity. She buys a pair of lovebirds for his sister and, when trying to deliver them to him, finds that he has gone to visit his hometown for the weekend. Being headstrong and used to getting her way, she traces him to his hometown. Over the weekend, strange events involving birds begin to take place.

The mastery of Hitchcock lies in that the narrative begins unassumingly following a seemingly normal pattern of events involving romance and not much more. However, in this slow and steady approach leading up to the attack of the birds, Hitchcock reveals the story layer by layer, demonstrating how build-up is the key to suspense.

 Alfred Hitchcock

Film Clip

When the birds begin attacking, it starts with isolated events that increase in frequency and violence. Expressions are captured and rendered so effectively so as to convey the sense of terror faced by the characters. The main characters are trapped in the house being attacked by birds and it seems a reversal of roles – humans are now caged inside the house.

One of the best shot scenes is when the female lead actor is attacked in the room towards the end of the film. Here, elements of mis-en-scene and montage are combined in a manner reminiscent of the famous shower scene from Hitchcock’s Psycho. The shot has multiple takes, each focusing on different angles of the attack, which combine to effectively convey the terror and brutality of the attack.

The film does not close with the words The End, as most of his films, but rather closes with only the people driving away in the car surrounded by the birds watching them. This speaks to the audience, telling them that the horror does not end. It continues.

The film has been interpreted differently by different people. But, one aspect that comes so obvious to us through the film is that you cannot endlessly cage nature, lest you should be caged by it.

- Elliot B Clarence