In November and December, our special series is dedicated to Final Cut: remarkable endings in the broadest sense of the word.
A relentless and gripping family drama by Iranian director and screenwriter Asghar Farhadi, about a disrupted divorce.
Disagreement over whether the family should leave Iran drives a young couple apart. One wants to move abroad to give their child a better future, while the other wishes to stay in Iran to care for his father, who is suffering from dementia. Their decision to divorce escalates into a complex legal and moral battle, bringing deeply rooted societal and personal issues to the surface.
With meticulous care, Farhadi creates in A Separation (2011) a complex power game in which the influences of theocracy, class, gender, and domestic hierarchies all come into play. The masterful script ultimately brings the characters to an irrevocable and devastating conclusion, with no perpetrators, only victims. The film has won numerous awards, including the Golden Bear in Berlin and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.