A Separation, a tightly structured, emotionally astute new film from Iran, begins with a couple, at odds and in distress, arguing in front of a judge. Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to leave the country with her daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), and Simin’s husband, Nader (Peyman Moadi), insists on staying at home in Tehran to care for his frail and elderly father, who suffers from dementia and needs constant attention. Quite possibly there is more at issue than practical domestic arrangements — there are hints of suppressed anger in Nader’s demeanor, of long-simmering exasperation in Simin’s — but an Iranian courtroom may not be the best place to discuss intimate marital matters.
Nor, given that country’s strict censorship codes, is an Iranian film. But A Separation, written and directed by Asghar Farhadi (and Iran’s official Oscar submission), does not feel especially constrained. It is a rigorously honest movie about the difficulties of being honest, a film that tries to be truthful about the slipperiness of truth. It also sketches a portrait — perhaps an unnervingly familiar picture for American audiences — of a society divided by sex, generation, religion and class.
The partial split between Nader and Simin is only one of the schisms revealed in the course of a story that quietly and shrewdly combines elements of family melodrama and legal thriller. Because Nader refuses to agree to a divorce or to give the legally required permission for his daughter to travel abroad, he and Simin find themselves at an impasse. She goes to live with her parents, and he hires a young woman named Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to help look after his father.
Photo courtesy of Swallow Wings Films
Razieh, who arrives with her young daughter, has an anxious, plaintive manner, and her apparent unreliability brings minor irritation and then outright chaos into Nader’s life. Before long — and as a result of events I will leave for you to discover — Nader is back in court, embroiled in long arguments with Razieh and her husband, Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), an unemployed shoemaker laden with debt and seething with resentment, humiliation and angry piety.
The conflict between the two families, which often turns on forensic details and uncertain recollections, is inflamed by social tension. In Hodjat’s eyes Nader and Simin are part of a corrupt and entitled elite, arrogant and irreligious and full of contempt for an ordinary working man like him. And their attempts to be reasonable, compassionate and polite betray an unmistakable condescension, which Asghar Farhadi tacitly endorses by making Hodjat such a brute.
There are moments when the humanism of A Separation feels a bit schematic, as if the characters were pulled from a box of available types rather than painted in the shades of life. But there are also scenes that draw power from the subtlety of the performances, in particular the quiet, watchful portrayal by Sarina Farhadi (the director’s daughter) of a girl who is at once central and peripheral to the drama unfolding around her. Termeh, shy and studious, is desperate to please her parents and terrified that her family will collapse. Her parents, and the audience, continually overlook the intensity of her feelings, which nonetheless pervade the film, along with her unspoken hope that everything will work out in the end.
Photo courtesy of Swallow Wings Films
The outcome is less important to Asghar Farhadi than what leads up to it, and the film is remarkably deft in capturing the petty, cumulative frustrations of modern city life. In addition to their weekly quota of quarrels and brooding silences, Simin and Nader must contend with work (she is a doctor, he has a job in a bank), their daughter’s schooling, Tehran traffic (a touchstone of recent Iranian cinema) and an officious and sometimes chaotic government bureaucracy. Daily life is a cycle of waiting, nagging, negotiating and looking for a place to park, much of it carried out with frayed and weary decorum. Even when everything seems to be falling apart, people try to mind their manners.
Because self-control seems to be, in this setting, both a deeply ingrained habit and a public virtue, eruptions of feeling — some of which come close to physical violence — arrive with special force in A Separation. And they leave a knot of ethical and philosophical questions that may make the walk home from the theater as argumentative as the film itself. Most of the characters’ behavior is viewed with sympathy and skepticism, and the frequent bouts of legal wrangling invite endless interpretation of every aspect of the story. Somehow it is all perfectly clear, and yet at the same time tantalizingly and heartbreakingly mysterious.
If one asks Taiwanese why house prices are so high or why the nation is so built up or why certain policies cannot be carried out, one common answer is that “Taiwan is too small.” This is actually true, though not in the way people think. The National Property Administration (NPA), responsible for tracking and managing the government’s real estate assets, maintains statistics on how much land the government owns. As of the end of last year, land for official use constituted 293,655 hectares, for public use 1,732,513 hectares, for non-public use 216,972 hectares and for state enterprises 34 hectares, yielding
The small platform at Duoliang Train Station in Taitung County’s Taimali Township (太麻里) served villagers from 1992 to 2006, but was eventually shut down due to lack of use. Just 10 years later, the abandoned train station had become widely known as the most beautiful station in Taiwan, and visitors were so frequent that the village had to start restricting traffic. Nowadays, Duoliang Village (多良) is known as a bit of a tourist trap, with a mandatory, albeit modest, admission fee of NT$10 giving access to a crowded lane of vendors with a mediocre view of the ocean and the trains
For many people, Bilingual Nation 2030 begins and ends in the classroom. Since the policy was launched in 2018, the debate has centered on students, teachers and the pressure placed on schools. Yet the policy was never solely about English education. The government’s official plan also calls for bilingualization in Taiwan’s government services, laws and regulations, and living environment. The goal is to make Taiwan more inclusive and accessible to international enterprises and talent and better prepared for global economic and trade conditions. After eight years, that grand vision is due for a pulse check. RULES THAT CAN BE READ For Harper Chen (陳虹宇), an adviser
Traditionally, indigenous people in Taiwan’s mountains practice swidden cultivation, or “slash and burn” agriculture, a practice common in human history. According to a 2016 research article in the International Journal of Environmental Sustainability, among the Atayal people, this began with a search for suitable forested slopeland. The trees are burnt for fertilizer and the land cleared of stones. The stones and wood are then piled up to make fences, while both dead and standing trees are retained on the plot. The fences are used to grow climbing crops like squash and beans. The plot itself supports farming for three years.
RSS