Updates, Live: Nader and Simin, A Separation

It happened today: Nader and Simin, A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمین - Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin) by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has won the Golden Bear (along with the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Best Actor) at the 61-st Berlin International Film Festival. The director dedicated the success to the great Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who is imprisoned by the regime in Tehran for his courageous political views expressed in his movies. The movie was released just several days ago, on February 9.

(video by Euronews)

Here is the plot of Nader a Simin, A Separation (as I found it on wikipedia): Nader and Simin have been married for fifteen years and live with their eleven-year-old daughter Termeh in Tehran. The family belong to the urban upper middle-class and the couple are on the verge of separation. Simin wants to leave the country with her husband and daughter, as she does not want Termeh to grow up under the prevailing conditions. Her desire is not shared by the stubborn Nader. He has concerns for his father, who lives with the family and suffers from Alzheimer's disease. When Nader decides to stay in Iran, Simin files for a divorce. The Family Court judges the couple's problems to not be grave enough and rejects Simin's application. Simin then leaves her husband and daughter and moves in with her mother. Nader hires Razieh, a young, pregnant and deeply religious woman from a poor suburb, to be able to better take care of his father. Razieh has applied for the job without consulting her hot-tempered husband Hodjat, whose approval according to tradition would have been needed. Her family is however financially dependent on the work, and brings her daughter with her. Razieh soon becomes overworked by taking care of Nader's father and does not receive much pay. She becomes unsure whether her religion allows her to wash the old man who suffers from incontinence. She refrains from the task and ties the man to his bed while she leaves for a doctor's appointment, but plans to ask her husband about the issue before Nader hears anything about it. However Nader returns and discovers the father's condition. Outraged, he shoves Razieh out of the apartment and calls her a criminal, whereupon the next day, she loses her unborn child in the fourth month of pregnancy. The case is taken to court. Razieh's husband could either get a prison sentence for attempted murder, or receive financial compensation if Nader is found to be guilty of the miscarriage. The wives and daughters wait outside for the final verdict. Razieh is found to not be guilty of the incident and tumbles to the street. Here is another summary of this movie, given by Radu_A: Nader and Simin are a couple about to break up over the question of moving abroad, for which they have obtained a permit after waiting for 18 months. Nader, however, has his father to take care of, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. Sirin still wants to leave, but not without her daughter (yes, pun intended) Termeh, a somewhat shy, bespectacled 11-year-old who cannot accept her parents' break-up. She therefore decides to stay with her father, which prompts Simin not to leave the country, but move to her mother. Nader is thereby forced to hire someone to take care of his dad, and a colleague of Sirin recommends the pregnant Razieh. Being deeply religious, she should not work in a single man's household, but her husband has been out of a job for a long time and is threatened with jail by his creditors. Her pregnancy and the necessity to attend to her daughter additionally stress her out. When Nader comes home one day to find his father left alone and tied to his bed, a struggle with the returning Razieh ensues, with catastrophic consequences for everyone around... One more word about the interpret of Simin: it's Leila Hatami, a fine actress that I saw also in Leila, an unforgettable movie made by Dariush Mehrjui.

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I wrote all this in 2011. I hoped to find the movie quickly. Well, I didn't find it on Amazon or Netflix, or on youTube, quickly, and, as it happens, I got busy with other things. Ten years passed. We are now in 2021. I found unexpectedly a copy of the movie on youTube, and I watched it last night. A movie of two hours, I watched it without breathing, it is so tense. Each character has her or his personal story, personal evolution, independently one another, and the resulting line is sheer madness. Well, the director gets to control all these parallel contradictory stories, creating a unique flow, a movie with a unique solid logic. Nothing is lost: the director masters superbly the general madness. Griffith comes to my mind and his 1916 Intolerance. Is that good!

And here is the movie: