A Separation

I'm fully aware that when someone like myself has been really hyping up a certain picture for a while...and they finally see it...and it turns out, surprise!, they're in love with it, it almost seems forced if not bordering on self-fulfilling prophecy. But when Asghar Farhadi (whom I met before the screening and is a totally nice guy) introduced the film, he told us to forget anything we've heard about it and ordered us not to think about any awards it had won or what reviews we'd read of it or any preconceptions we'd held and to pretend that we have an appointment at 4:00 and were just looking for a way to kill time until then by watching that movie. And by the end of it, for the first time I've ever seen a 1 pm non-gala showing at a film festival, Farhadi rightfully received a standing ovation from the crowd.

And boy howdy did he deserve it. It was honestly one of the most emotional, invigorating, aggravating, tense and visceral viewing experiences and reaction I've had to watching a film in a very long time. Perhaps it's a bit one-sided in favor of Nader to a fault, but his character still gets enough of a vague morality that comprises part of the film's beauty. Never before, I'll say, have I seen a film that so perfectly captures the ambiguity of human "truth." Let's just say that Meryl Streep's final line in Doubt had nowhere near the impact or stakes that a similar line delivered in this film had by any means. But you see temperatures flailing as two sides held black and white and defined sides when deep inside, both sides know they each have more nuances and complications to their stories that they will refuse to confront either out of their own shame or guilt or rationality's sake to win in the system of a legal court.

There were points in the film where I easily felt as hot-tempered as the characters themselves and by the end of it was basically shaking, and I think many in the audience felt the same way. I think I read somewhere that some felt that the sort-of-twist in the final act completely ruined it for them but I don't really think it was anything that I paid much attention or mind to while watching it because it all still fit with the rest of the film and the story, and if anything added a necessary complication to a certain character's side to the story that made me sympathize a little more with her actions despite how deep the implications of it ran, whereas otherwise I think that would have seemed weak. And to me it just speaks more to how intricately and beautifully constructed every word and character and action in Farhadi's script is, and each and every performance more or less seemed as intricate and beautiful as Farhadi had seemingly written them, and I totally understand why basically every actor won Best Actor or Best Actress at Berlin and why Isabella Rosselini's jury's decision was pretty unanimous. It's truly a marvel to behold.