‘Powerful’ portrait of divorce, Iranian-style

The woes of a married Iranian couple might look like pretty tame material amid the welter of comic book blockbusters that has so far marked the summer cinema season, but a quietly complex film called A Separation has received high praise from the critics and opens in Britain today garlanded with international awards.

It won the Golden Bear at Berlin in February, and has just won best film at the Sydney film festival, beating strong opposition from Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Miranda July's The Future, a hit at Sundance.
 
A Separation tells the story of thirty-something Simin, played by Leila Hatami, who wants to leave the country with her husband Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and daughter. When Nader refuses to leave behind his incontinent, Alzheimer-suffering father, Simin sues for divorce.

This starts a train of events that takes the audience through the politics of relationships and a repressive Islamic state.
 
Bringing in various characters, including a lower-class maid whom Nader hires when he starts living on his own, and the maid's tempestuous husband, the film flits from person to person, preventing the viewer from sympathising with anyone in particular.
 
This is part of its brilliance, says Dave Calhoun in Time Out. "It employs a tricksy moral compass that swings all over the place as we see its story from various viewpoints."
 
Empire's David Parkinson says the "densely plotted, morally complex drama" results in "powerful art cinema" while simultaneously exposing divisions "throughout Iranian society".
 
Director Asghar Farhadi succeeds in discussing Iran without the heavy-handedness that has marked previous films from the country. "Though the film lasts over two hours," says Reuters in a review, "fast-moving editing keeps the action tensely involving from start to finish." ·