A Separation

This is one of the best films I've seen recently. It starts with a straightforward situation. A wife leaves her husband and he, left with the eleven-year-old daughter, and having an elderly father to look after, engages a housekeeper.

From this simple beginning the plot just thickens and thickens. The people in it don't seem like actors, they seem like real people. It is as though one is staying in the husband's flat and all these events break out around one.

The film is Iranian and it is set among middle class people in Iran. Some commentators have remarked that it is about the religious and class structure in Iran. Of course we see these things, but really it is about people like US, and the sort of strife we can all run into. We have religious and class structures here, don't forget, and other bizarre ways of doing things that are particular to us, just as they do in Iran.

The film was directed by Asghar Farhadi, and the eleven-year-old daughter of the couple is played by Farhadi's daughter. She looks a little more that eleven years old, but she is amazing and moving.