CINEMA Fault lines
A Separation DIRECTOR: ASGHAR FARHADI
couple, Simin and Nader, take turns to address the camera, as if the audience were the presiding judge in a divorce, per- suading us of their causes for separation. Their reasons are not entirely convincing: she wants to leave Iran to give their daughter a better life; he cannot abandon his father who is suf- fering from dementia. Their 11-year-old daughter is for now living with the father in the hope that her parents might get back together. In the meantime, her father must hire a daytime carer for the grandfather. Razieh, a woman desperate to help her strug- gling family’s finances, takes on the job, keeping it a secret from her husband. At first her religious beliefs forbid her from changing or washing the incontinent octogenarian; she has to phone a doctrinal advice line to find out under what circumstances it might not be a sin. From Simin and Nader’s initial marital frac- ture, a series of deeper fissures spread out. There is an accident and the criminal judicial system rolls into action. Over two hours, a series of complications are revealed – A Separation turns from moment to moment from detective story to ethical examination to emotional drama – and the audience must
A
Provokes the emotions, not the sensors: A Separation
deliberate, just as the examining magistrate in the hearings must deal with each exhausting new twist. Sympathies are tested. There are neither heroes nor villains although individ- uals may be exasperating or threatening. At one level, this Iranian film, which won
the Golden Bear and main acting awards at Berlin in February and the top prize at the Sydney Film Festival recently, is a compelling illustration of the way that practical, economic, class and religious pressures work on personal lives and particularly on the sense of honour. While other Iranian directors, such as Jafar Panahi, have run into trouble with the author- ities for daring to tackle politics, however obliquely, Asghar Farhadi as auteur excels at the kind of domestic story – depicted in foren- sic, revealing detail – that does not provoke the censor yet stirs up all kinds of troubling ideas about Iranian society in particular and the mixing of truth and hypocrisy in general.
RADIO God’s waiting room
Lives in a Landscape BBC RADIO 4
C
urrently halfway through its eighth series, Lives in a Landscape looks set to run for
ever. It is one of those programmes whose strength lies in its stark simplicity: the man with the microphone; an occasional question; vagrant, swarming humanity encouraged to say whatever comes into its head. Among other things, it is an example of why no invented dialogue, whether set down on the printed page or spoken in a radio drama, can ever be properly “realistic”. Anyone who attempted to forge the kind of exchanges to be overheard in a Jewish old-people’s home, here on the easternmost margin of outer London, would come a terrible cropper. Such utterances need non-actors to deliver them. It was raining in Gant’s Hill when Alan Dein arrived. The Vi and John Rubens House, one of several administered by a Jewish char- ity, was (accurately) described as “a small-scale kingdom”. The 100-plus inhabitants enjoyed such amenities as a synagogue, a hair salon, kosher cuisine and TheJewish Chronicle. Lisa,
26 | THE TABLET | 2 July 2011
the friendly hairdresser (“You’re looking good, Minnie”), straight away deconstructed its environment in terms of narrative – “There’s always a story” – and noted that her own close relationship with her grandparents meant that she preferred the senior citizen age-group to her own.
According to Lisa, the place was awash with
“very happy people”. This was even, or perhaps especially, true of the dementia cases: “It’s the people who look after them who suffer.” The residents included 89-year-old Monty (“I feel young here”) and Hannah and Hetty (joint age nearing 200) whose daily exercise regime involved a frame-supported walk around the building. As well as being narrowly realistic, the voice-overs were also thoroughly stylised and nicely repetitive. An elderly lady singing about her “Yiddisher momma”; “I had a shop in Wood Street”; “I was one of three sisters” – nearly every speaker had his or her signature remark, and the sound of them breaking through the swirl of attendant chatter was oddly poetic. The interviews with non-residents were equally revealing. The chef, a veteran of the catering trade, thought that these were the toughest customers he had ever had to face. Even Lisa talked about having to recharge her batteries when she came home from work in the evening. The general air was one of communal enthusiasm (“We’re one big fam-
As in Farhadi’s previous films, including About Elly, the characters here are inclined to embroider or edit the truth to preserve stability or amour propre or simply to avoid violence. The cast is outstanding, including the divorcing couple played by Peyman Moaadi and Leila Hatami and Sarina Farhadi (taking her father’s direction) as their solemn-eyed daughter who asks the most direct questions but then, like the adults, has to make choices about the consequences. The locations are
unremarkable yet utterly convincing, from Simin and Nader’s tasteful flat to the corridors and offices of various institutions, whether hospital or court, where people wait to chal- lenge or be challenged, separated by walls, doors and screens. No detail is wasted. It may seem incongruous to mention, by con- trast, an American comedy of mature romance and self-improvement released in the same week. Larry Crowne, starring and directed by Tom Hanks as a middle-aged ex-serviceman “downsized” from a store job, has this victim of recession take up the further education he missed and fall along the way for teacher in the form of Julia Roberts. For all its pretensions to social comment and a daring venture into areas little touched by Hollywood, in the end it seems that a tidier kitchen, some spiffy trans- port and a few top grades at school will set anyone right the American way, however grey the skies overhead. Hanks’ amiable comedy is a very long way from Asghar Farhadi’s Tehran; it may need no subtitles but I know which of the two is more comprehensible. Francine Stock
ily”), interspersed with flights of elegiac rem- iniscence (“We had lovely times, years ago”). One exception to this rule was Lily, captured in matter-of-fact conversation with Brian, coordinator of the volunteers. “I still feel there’s no light at the end of the tunnel … I’ve had a good innings,” Lily declared, before going on to lament that “Practically every week there’s someone dying. I mean, it’s God’s wait- ing room, isn’t it?” Earlier, Lily had mentioned how many visitors she got: some residents had none. “You’re better off than most,” Brian (gently) insisted. “You’re always telling me that,” Lily shot back. “It doesn’t help me … When you’ve had a busy life, this is such a waste of time.” The programme (22 June) ended with what, in the context of the Essex care home, was a flurry of excitement – a day trip to a rival establishment in north-west London for a quiz. Everyone was up for a splendid time, but it was difficult to forget Lily’s despair at her presumed uselessness or the old man who never saw his son or visited his wife’s grave and maintained that “it’s all in here”. Whether he meant that his emotions were contained within himself or that his life had no other focus than the Vi and John Rubens House was unclear. Like much else on display in this moving half-hour, what looked on the surface to be highly straightforward nearly always turned out to be ambiguous. D.J. Taylor
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