Une séparation

I'll just get to the point,

if you are previewing for something to watch, there is no way you can play the 1st 3 minutes of this film and stop. It hooks you straight in, and for me, I LOVE that in films.

the story is just AMAZING, and the way it's portrayed, the director makes sure you are following behind with EVERY MINUTE OF THE FILM, as it unwinds. the casting is just brilliant, as if they were just born to play this film and then die. they achieve in captivating the emotion of the story VERY well. EVERY SINGLE ACTOR int this film did a great job.

what's even more amazing, it's how low budget this film is (300K us$).

as a conclusion; 3 good things about this film; (1) the story-line, well written and well scripted (2) the cast, well selected, and amazing acting (3) the setting, and the lack of a score! (yes, & it was a great idea!)

If mainstream cinema leaves you soulless, see this film.

If you have a modicum of intelligence, see this film.

If you like great acting and directing, see this film.

If you like great writing and editing, see this film.

If you have an interest in law, see this film.

If you are a parent, see this film.

A Separation is not harrowing or depressing. Fear not as I did before. If you don't like subtitles, you will forget they are there. Do not read any more detailed reviews. Go without preconception. A Separation deserves all the plaudits it is getting and deserves a much wider audience. Minimalistic and economic, a Separation is one of the finest, most chiselled pieces of cinema of this millennium.

Caught "A Separation" in Amsterdam last night, fully unprepared for its greatness. I hadn't been swept off my feet for a while, but this Iranian Hitchcockian drama sucked us in for 123 minutes and left us very, very impressed.

I'm mainly writing this review to assure every non-Iranian IMDb-reader that you absolutely SHOULD see "A Separation". I will be shocked if this movie doesn't win an Academy Award. The acting is great, and the script is probably the best I've seen in five years. The genius of Asghar Farhadi's story is that it piles on the tension and drama without resorting to fireworks, trickery or shock and awe plot effects. It also manages to perfectly balance the plights of several protagonists. Very few screenwriters have this capacity.

If this movie reminds me of anything, it is "Ladri di Biciclette" (Bicycle Thieves), which has a similar seemingly "simple" story setup. But then "A Separation" is much more developed, much more complex, much richer. Go see it.

And it comes from Iran. The first thing you read on the screen is "In the name of God". Well, anyway it's the best story, the best cutting, the best actors you've seen for long. And few films are that stomach-turning, although there's hardly any physical violence.

A wife wants to go abroad. Her husband can't because he wants to take of his senile father. The wife moves and the husband hires a woman to look after his father.

And then the screw turns, although most of the story takes place in everyday Iranian life. The center of it all is perhaps the daughter, who is nearly teared apart. But it takes time until you realize that. Anyway, I can almost guarantee you sit the film through, until the final post-texts has passed.

So amazingly clever.

This is the first Iranian film I've seen, and I'm recommending it to every-one I know. It is so well-crafted; the twists of the plot throw up new moral dilemmas for all the protagonists, which are explored sensitively and without judgement - so refreshingly unlike mainstream American films. I felt sympathy for all the characters, even the threatening Hodjat, full of misplaced rage which often erupts volcanically. And as a footnote, the film felt like an intimate view into a society that our news media portray as monochromatic and extremely foreign. (I am writing this a few days after the UK embassy in Tehran was ransacked)