Archive: Keswick Film Festival

Sunday 26th February 3:00 PM - Alhambra

A Separation
(Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)

Director: Asghar Farhadi Country: Iran
Cert: PG Year: 2011 Length: 123 minsLanguage: Persian

2012 Festival

Audience Reaction

Score: 89.58% Attendance: 73

Links

In this multi-award winning film (including Golden Berlin Bear, 2011) Nader and Simin argue about living abroad. Simin prefers to live abroad to provide better opportunities for their only daughter, Termeh. However, Nader refuses to go because he thinks he must stay in Iran and take care of his father who suffers from Alzheimer's. However, Simin is determined to get a divorce and leave the country with her daughter. Their argument has escalated into a demand for divorce. The film shows a middle-class household under siege; there are semi-unsolved mysteries, angry confrontations and family burdens: an ageing parent and two children from warring camps appearing to make friends.

Thanks to Artificial Eye

Critics

Farhadi, like Michael Haneke, in his 2005 film Hidden takes a scalpel to his bourgeois homeland. With great power and subtlety, (he) transforms this ugly quarrel into a contemporary tragedy.