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Film Review: A Separation

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Introduction: A Separation

A film review is an analysis of the plot of a movie that attempts to grade a movie based on its mode of presentation of the main plot. Film reviews attempt to depict the stylistic device and presentation that the movie or film employs in order to communicate its message. Main points of focus are usually the analysis of the plot, characters and language use that the movie employs. “A Separation” is an Iranian drama movie directed by Asghar Farhadi in the year two thousand and eleven. The movie becoming revered across the globe winning numerous awards such as the Academy Award, Golden Bear Award, and the Golden Globe award.

Story Line

The theme of the movie is the separation between that occurs between Nader and Simin. The two have had a fourteen yearlong marriage and also have a daughter whose name is Termeh. The family lives in a suburban home in Tehran with Nader’s elderly father who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Simin does not want their daughter to grow up in the prevailing conditions presently in the country and thus asks Nader to move out of the country to a place she perceives to be better but Nader declines citing his father’s condition. Simin becomes persistent and Nader also holds his ground on the matter prompting Simin to file for a divorce. The divorce does not go through on the count that the family court deems their reason for divorce insufficient paving way for a series of conflicts and family melodrama.

Characters and Production

The film’s main characters are Simin and Nader (Leila Hatami and Peyman Moaadi respectively) supported by Hodjat, Razeih, Termeh, Ali-Asghar as Nader’s Father and Shirin Yazdanbakhsh, Simin’s mother. The characters are mainly the families of Nader and Simin embroiled in the family melodrama. The characters are also quite essential as they do present the themes of the movie quite well. The production of the movie was at first in jeopardy owing to Iran’s strict constitution on family and culture. Numerous funding from other film bodies for example Motion Picture Association enabled the production to go on without any help from the government. Farhadi, the director and author of the film, said that the film was logically the development of his previous movie entitle “About Elly”. The quality of the movie is also commendable in terms of texture, mood setting, and general cinematography. This enhances the conveyances of the themes of the movie making it much more believable and increasing the probability of the movie’s acceptance. The movie mainly targets the young families embroiled in a conflict and the message is that there are better ways of solving the conflicts other than divorce. Increasing divorce cases due to insufficient reasons in real life contribute to the failings of our society because a family is the basic unit of a nation. Failures of the families amount to failures of our nations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the film depicts the current real life conflicts evident in the society. People nowadays engage in early marriage without being sure of their reasons for marriage and thus with time, conflicts do arise (Issa & Whitaker, Eds, 1999). The film attempts to portray the shortcomings of the modern family set up and showing that there are other ways of problem solving with in the family set up not just a divorce. The success of the film is evidence that conveyance of the message of the film to its target audience is successful.

References

Giannetti, L. D., & Leach, J. (1999). Understanding movies (Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 999). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Issa, R., & Whitaker, S. (Eds.). (1999). Life and art: The new Iranian cinema. National Film Theatre.