Friday Noon Movie Club: "A Separation"

This past Friday I was joined by two Friday Movie friends, and we had the entire theater to ourselves. It must be what Siskel and Ebert used to feel like, sitting in that screening room. Except without all the power. And I bet their daughters didn’t call them in the middle of the movie to beg a ride home so they wouldn’t have to get on the bus. Where was I? Oh, the movie.

A Separation is an Iranian film about a problem very familiar to the Western world—a marriage that is being pulled apart by the desire to do what is best for both a child and an ailing parent. No simple thing.

Nader and Simin are a married couple who, from all appearances, respect and love each other. They have been bringing up their daughter, Termeh, to be an independent, intelligent young woman. They’ve also been making plans to leave Iran for another, more open country for their daughter.

The trouble is, Nader’s father has Alzheimer’s. He’s past the point of recognizing his son, though he still calls his daughter-in-law by name. Nader cannot bear to leave him in the care of someone else. Simin leaves, going to stay with her mother with the expressed intention of leaving the country before the visa expires. Termeh is caught in between them, doing what she can to keep her parents together.

In the midst of their frustrations, Nader hires a woman to help care for his father while he is gone for the day. This woman finds the job very difficult for several reasons. She suffers fear of breaking religious law by cleaning the father when he soils himself. She is pregnant, she has a young daughter who comes to work with her, and she is married to an unemployed, hot-tempered man who does not know about her job. A disagreement between employer and the employee leads to a legal battle.

The film gives insight into daily life in Iran, at least for the moderately well-to-do. It gives a glimpse of the criminal justice system there, as well as the precarious nature of any life, subject to forces that we cannot control.

The separation of the title has many implications. The separation of the married couple. Separation between parents and children, between upper and lower class, between those with power and those without. The separations are symbolized by constantly opening and closing doors. Whenever anyone decides to speak the truth to another, they put someone else out of the room before they speak, especially the young girls. The true separations come when anyone chooses to lie to protect themselves, to make themselves look better. Every time an untruth comes out of someone’s mouth, a new separation is born.

This is a wrenching film, but an unflinching look at the struggle between self-protection in the name of safety and self-sacrifice in the name of integrity. The characters are well-rounded and true, as are the performances. Nader’s love and honor of his afflicted father is heartbreaking and beautiful. And on top of it all, you get to see into the daily life of a family in Iran, a world we rarely get to see.