Nader and Simin, A Separation

Colour, 35 mm
Iran, 2011, 123 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

Nader and Simin stand at a crossroads: while the woman wants to leave Iran with her daughter, her husband doesn’t and can’t because he is caring for his invalid father. An even more tragic event, however, burdens the troubled relationship and works its way into other people’s lives. The picture, which shows everyday life in a contemporary Iranian city, succeeds with exceptional naturalness in getting close to the protagonists, but does not abuse its success for the purposes of cheap melodrama. The director observes the characters with understanding and impartiality, but doesn’t shy away from probing their problems from all sides. The protagonists here are not driven by evil intentions, rather they are swept up by circumstance or pushed by a desire for what seems just in their own eyes. The conflicts are not artificially aggravated and yet they are full of tension, perhaps because in the end there will be no winners and losers standing against each other, but simply people who, without exception, have been marked by this learning experience.

About the director

Asghar Farhadi (b. 1972, Isfahan, Iran) is a graduate of Tehran University, where he focused on directing short films as well as writing theater plays and screenplays. In 2003 he debuted with the feature Dancing in the Dust (Raghs dar ghobar), which took Best Actor (Faramarz Gharibian) at the Moscow IFF. Fireworks Wednesday (Chahar shanbeh souri, 2006) screened at numerous festivals, winning the main prize, the Golden Hugo, at Chicago. For the 2009 film About Elly (Darbareye Elly), screened to audiences at Karlovy Vary, Farhadi took Best Director at the Berlinale. His fifth film, Nader and Simin: A Separation won this year’s Berlin festival.