Film Review: "A Separation" ("جدایی نادر از سیمین‎") (2011).

"Lies may lead to truth." This is A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمین)  This Iranian drama film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi. When Nader, a bank employee, refuses to leave Tehran, his wife, Simin sues for divorce in the hope that she can make a better life for their young daughter abroad. Needing someone to care for his senile father while he's at work, Nader hires Razieh, a married woman whose chador hides her pregnancy. One day, after becoming angry with Razieh, Nader shoves her, and she has a miscarriage, leading Razieh's husband to take Nader to court.

The concept came from a number of personal experiences and abstract pictures which had been in Farhadi's mind for some time. Farhadi's first idea for the movie was the image of a man washing his father, who had Alzheimer's. He built the rest of the film around that scene. Once he decided to make the film, about a year before it premiered, it was quickly written and financed. Farhadi described the film as the "logical development" from his previous film, About Elly. Like Farhadi's last three films, the film was made without any government support. The financing went without trouble much thanks to the success of About Elly. The production was granted US$25,000 in support from the Motion Picture Association's APSA Academy Film Fund. However, in September 2010, Farhadi was banned from making the film by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, because of an acceptance speech held during an award ceremony where he expressed support for several Iranian film personalities. Notably he had wished to see the return to Iranian cinema of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an exiled filmmaker and Iranian opposition profile, and of the imprisoned political filmmaker Jafar Panahi, both of whom had been connected to the Iranian Green Movement. In retaliation, Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance stopped filming for 10 days. However, the ban was ultimately lifted in the beginning of October after Farhadi claimed to have been misperceived and apologized for his remarks.

The film stars Leila Hatami, Peyman Moaadi, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat, and Sarina Farhadi. The brilliance of the cast, as well as Farhadi’s script and direction, becomes most apparent in the latter stages of the film. As one secret after another is revealed, the cast and Farhadi deftly maps out the shifts in the perceptions and behavior of the characters toward each other as well as the viewer’s perception of the characters.

A Separation offers viewers performances as powerful as its thought-provoking ideas, and adds another strong entry to Farhadi's impressive filmography. One of the most remarkable Iranian films to surface in the last few years. The film is a small but compelling ensemble piece of surprising depth. It’s one of those rare films that can be read on one level purely as a satisfying drama, but which also has a rich, independent inner life, centered on big questions about right and wrong, social coercion and the lies people tell themselves and each other.

Simon says A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمین) receives: