Film Review: A Separation / Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin [dir. Asghar Farhadi; 2011]

With painstaking attention to detail, Farhadi weaves an intricate web of deception and conflicted loyalties based around a middle class man’s attempt to find someone to look after his Alzheimer’s-suffering father whilst he’s away at work. When the woman he employs accuses him of causing her to have a miscarriage, events around the characters become increasingly convoluted. This is cinema at its very best: layered, naturalistic performances; a gripping, thought-provoking, completely unforced narrative; intelligent, unobtrusive directing (featuring excellent handheld camera work and subtle framing). If Kieslowski were still alive and wanting to make a film in Iran, the result may well have been A Separation. Quite superb.