I still remember watching "Little Shoes" back then, when a few like-minded classmates watched DVDs together in a shabby room. At the end of the film, through the dim light, I saw everyone's eyes slightly moist until the music stopped. For a long time, no one spoke, quietly, Only the bottom noise of the speakers and the smoke from the mouth, the smoke slowly lingered in front of the blue phosphor screen to the whole room, there is ideal and loneliness in this smoke.
Silence is the most terrifying. There is a saying: "If you don't die in silence, you will break out in silence." Now, death may be the ideal of the movie, and the outbreak may be the helplessness of a life. Even if the ideal of the movie is dead, To be sublimated at the time of death, to be nirvana in the lust of the movie! A movie is a movie, and in the end, it has to come back to the story, a touching story, a life outside of reality.
Going back to the movie "A Separation", after watching the movie, I feel that the name is quite appropriate, the separation of people, the separation of social classes, the separation of Nader and Simin, the separation of Temei, and the separation of Ruiz's daughter The separation from his childhood, and finally the separation of honesty and lies, morality and belief.
If I were director Ahasfati, I would name it "Choice". The whole film revolves around everyone's choice of ideology, lies, honesty, faith, marriage, class, and at the same time shows the whole class of the Islamic Republic of Iran. the whole state of mind and life.
Let’s talk about the social status of Iran first. Iran was originally called Persia, and later changed its name to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a non-democratic country in the Middle East, a multi-ethnic Muslim country with a population of more than 75 million. In recent years, the sanctions against Iran by Europe and the United States and the chaos of the domestic political and economic structure have caused a serious depreciation of the Iranian rial, so the cleaning fee for Ruizi in the film can reach 300,000 rials per month, if it is in US dollars or pounds. Then I have to be happy, if it is the yen, we will be cursed for not counting money every day.
Political and economic instability has also seriously affected Iran's film environment. China's film environment is bad enough, and Iran's film censorship system is even worse! But no matter how exaggerated, Iranian films are still recognized internationally. I calculated about 400 international awards, big and small, after Baidu and Google. Of course, the most famous in the world is the poet and director Abbas. There is a joke saying: "The movie starts with Griffith and ends with Abbas". If you don't have a certain amount of patience, watching Abbas' movies must be a good movie for hypnosis. If you have insomnia, don't take medicine and watch Abbas. Bass's films are fine, although Abbas's films are hypnotic, it does not prevent me from liking him, nor does it prevent him from becoming one of the international film masters and one of my idols.
Now let's talk about the plot of the movie.
Nader and Westminster want to divorce because Westminster applied for a visa to go abroad (according to the decoration of the props in the film, it should be the United States), and they want to leave Iran with their daughter Temei and Nader, but Nader does not agree, Because there is also a father who suffers from Alzheimer's disease at home, the two disagreed and did not separate. So Westmin moved back to live with her parents, and Temey followed her father.
Nader hired Raci, who was five months pregnant, to take care of his father. Raci brought his young daughter to Nader's house. Because the old man was old and had dementia, no one knew him. Disappeared, Ruiz went out to look for it, not wanting to be wiped by the car, she tied the old man and went to the hospital by herself. When Ruiz returned home, Nader had come back. Nader almost suffocated because his father was tied to the bed and fell off. Angrily pushes Ruiz out, Ruiz slips and has a miscarriage. The next day Nader finds out that he feels guilty to visit Ruiz and does not want to start a fight with Ruiz's husband. Then Nader is accused of homicide, and then it starts. A series of difficult choices, you sue me, I sue you, you lie, and I lie, between a middle-class and a low-level ordinary person facing the choice of lies and beliefs, in the end, this choice is also placed on Temei On the body, how Temei chose not to explain.
The end is the impact of Western culture and the reality of Iran, that is, the separation of Nader and Simin caused Temei's pain. Nader and Simin were separated by a door in the corridor crowd, and they looked lonely and peaceful in the lively crowd. Helpless, the conflict between the cultural values and beliefs of the West and Iran has made the distance between people become distant and far away. Even if you live under one roof, different ideologies ultimately determine your choice and separation!
1. Separation of morality and law - Nader's choice
Morality and law have always been an inseparable contradiction from ancient times to the present, from east to west. In the film, Westminster felt that Nader knew that Ritz was pregnant, but Nader did not admit it in front of Ritz, Westminster, and the judge because the judge said, "If you know she's pregnant, that means she's guilty of murdering you. , according to Iranian law, you have citizenship at 19 weeks of pregnancy, and you will be sentenced to 2-3 years in prison.” Nader hurriedly denied, and later, under repeated questioning by his daughter Temei, he admitted that he heard the conversation between Ruiz and his tutor in the kitchen .
Nader said to his daughter: "I denied it all because of you. I forgot she was pregnant when I pushed her out the door."
Teme said, "Then you can tell the judge truthfully."
Nader: You know what, The law doesn't care whether you forget it or not, it only cares whether you know it or not.
Teme was silent after Nader's words. Between truth and lies, Nader chose to lie, between morality and law, between Reich's abortion and real life, he chose to avoid morality. He finally wanted to get away with the law, but this choice also made him Feeling disturbed, but this is the reality, the status quo between the Iranian middle class and the general public at the bottom, in the final analysis, the general public at the bottom is the victim of this environment, the bottom of the pyramid.
In the beginning of the scene, Ruizi came to Nader's house to clean up the next day in place of her husband. Nader asked: Why didn't your husband come?
Ruizi: He was taken away by the police last night, and he would have come if it wasn't for the creditor. I'm going back tonight and begging the creditors to let him back.
Nader's indifferent answerer Ruiz: Please lock the door when I'm gone
Ruizi started another day's work. The difference from the previous day was that she closed the blinds at home, and then took off her coat and started to work, just like the first day when he helped the old man change his pants, he had to call first. She does it only if it doesn't violate her beliefs. All these actions point to one point. She is a devout Muslim believer. This kind of pious behavior and Nader's attitude in talking with Ruiz's husband at the bank, and the first day he talked with Ruiz about the monthly salary of 300,000 rials, and Ruiz's husband said to Nader: Do you have God in your heart? ? In stark contrast, faith is at the bottom and not middle class, the law does not consider faith and morality, the law is slightly biased towards the middle class while remaining as equal as possible, the policeman who was handcuffed with Nader raised his sworn hand Says it all!
2. Integrity and Lies
"[Ancient 3:17] They are patient, they are honest, they are obedient, they are charitable, and they ask for mercy at dawn."
Servants of Allah, true believers are honest, in fact The whole movie revolves around this issue of "parting". Parting means choosing between honesty and lies. Leaving honesty means going to lies and betraying beliefs. But the question is whether the beliefs of the middle class are really like the bottom line. The public is relatively solid, and Ruizu, who was at the bottom, also chose a "lie" in front of the judge, and the helplessness of living at the bottom in the face of faith was also tempted by lies and interests. People's "mouth" is easy to blurt out lies in the face of certain interests, and beliefs occasionally appear pale and powerless in the cruel moment of life.
Nader, Simin, and Teme come to Ruiz's house to give Ruiz the negotiated money, but the premise is that Ruiz must press the "Qur'an" in front of Teme and everyone and swear to his God. It was all honesty, and Ruizi did not swear in the end because she really lied, for fear that her daughter would be punished by God, and that her heart would be permanently disturbed. Although the faith of Allah will be pale at some point among the general public, it will always show its strength at the last moment. The choice of Ruiz is also the choice of all the lower classes in Iran, even under the persuasion of the husband, in the creditor Sitting at home, she still insisted on her choice despite the pain. In fact, everyone is facing one choice after another, isn't it?
The reason Ritz was hit and lied was because he was looking for Nader's father when he was hit by a car in traffic. The environment of being hit is in a completely realistic, life-like, real natural environment of a certain day in Iran. From the whole structural theme of the film, the connotation implied by the director is that what was hit was not Ruizi, but the one who hit. It is the toiling mass class in the real life of the whole Iran. It is not the child who is aborted, but the entire Iranian politics' indifference to the life at the bottom. This indifference and belief establish an antagonistic relationship and at the same time reflect the entire state of existence in Iran. No matter how you understand the film, ordinary audiences have secretly noticed some changes in their subconscious. A woman lost a life because of her work, then lied, and her conscience was condemned. In the end, she could not surpass the power of faith. A middle-class father who lied to avoid responsibility, tossed between his daughter's trust and moral yardstick, and in the end the daughter chose him to be innocent and a man of integrity. No matter what the adults choose, the power of separation will fall on the children, dooming the future of Iran's political direction.
3. The distance between innocence and reality The
innocent child, the daughter of Temei and Ruizi. In the scene where Ruizi presses the Koran, the eyes of the children are heart-wrenching. Friendship, innocence, and the estrangement and opposition of the class environment will gradually separate the children, and the parting is also a childlike distance!
4. Temei's choice
Temei's final choice is father or mother, the West or Iran, whether the two can be integrated or not, she has her own decision, let's make it self-evident, this trick is really high for the director ! ! ! !
In the end, I won’t say much. I’ll look like a Tang monk in “Journey to the West”. It is worth mentioning that the photography of the whole film, which is completely hand-held, seems to make people feel the feeling in the hearts of Iranians. Anxiety and restlessness, a sense of documentary under natural light.
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