A Separation

"A Separation" is an Iranian drama film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, it tells the story of a married couple who are on the verge of getting a divorce, over a disagreement about migration, meanwhile, their daughter tires her best to make sure that doesn't happen.

Asghar Farhadi and his crew were able to assemble a fantastic cast, that brought the story's tragic characters to life, in such a beautiful way. It is pretty rare to have the entire participants of a project do their jobs to the fullest, and that clearly shows in this feature, I seriously can't even pick a stand-out performance due to how equally well everyone appeared.

And Mr. Farhadi proves to be an exceptional director without even looking at the "behind the scenes" footage that shows how determined he is, I really love and admire when a director has a clear vision in his head, and won't stop until the former is brought to life elegantly, that's Asghar Farhadi for you.

The film not only has a gripping story to tell, but it also uses it as a bridge to broadcast Iran's culture, religion, society structure and its justice system, which most of the viewers probably aren't exposed to, and that creates (hopefully) some rich and interesting conversations.

The events themselves are genuinely engaging, your emotions easily get invested in this world's characters, and each of them are presented in a great manner that makes you understand them and their motives, right or wrong, at least we can see their point of view and perspective and that's due to the great writing.

This is no flawless film though, it has its missteps, for example, the movie cheats when trying to make us believe that a certain scenario is impossible and illogical, when clearly at least through my eyes, I can definitely see it easily happening, I would like to think that this issue stems from the inability to find the perfect flat to shoot in, but if that's the case then they should of just scrapped this whole plot point.

Another thing that bothered me is the daughter's reaction when opening a door, her scream clearly came way before she could possibly see what was wrong, they even tried to fix this problem in the trailer, but it looked bad and unsynchronised. Finally, there's a whole unexplored situation with a woman and her going to a doctor, the writers thought it wasn't significant enough I guess ? But for realism's sake, it should of been explained further, because not doing so kinda created some plotholes.

Overall this film is awesome ! The magnificently shot happenings pin you down on your seat, and make you go through its runtime while on the edge, not to mention, the ending is absolutely fantastic. This is a Full Price.