A Separation

What an experience.

Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian masterpiece, A Separation, is the kind of movie that makes you think long after the end credits roll up. No, not think but rather reflect upon yourselves and people close to you and those incidents and revelations when you see everybody’s true nature.

This film portrays righteousness as a value to fight for. But it begs us to ask whether the fight is worth it? Should compromise be a better solution for incidents where we don’t know the truth or only know partial/half truths?

The film starts with a simple scene that establishes the two main characters much better than other films have established in their entire lengths. They are both arrogant, stubborn, and have reached a place in life where compromise seems like a loss.

The son-father-husband and the mother-wife protagonists have to deal with an incident that happens just after they are separated. Also, there are three children who are immediately affected by the incident.

The film shows that goodness, kindness, honesty, selflessness, family, ego, and self-righteousness are different things and these values change with situations and circumstances. Sometimes these values change in front of a judge (whether human or God… because we are afraid and god-fearing). In face of a life-changing situation, some people compromise and control themselves while some people can’t. How all this further affects the future for all characters involved is captured brilliantly.

Causality... Can we really point out the cause of an effect? Do we really know the truth? Can we? Can we claim that we are right and others are wrong?

The movie really asks us for answers to these questions and more. And, just like the movie ends, I too am waiting for my answers to mull over and regurgitate again and again.