Limited release 12/30/11
This was my birthday movie (4/30/12) at Crossroads or the Loft, I'm writing this long afterwards and I can't remember..... (then went to free dinner at Claim Jumper afterwards.
RT critics: 99 RT audience: 93
my rating: 6/It was awesome
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Sony Picture Classics
Winner of the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Film
Setting: Contemporary Iran
Very engrossing, even with some long, slow-moving scenes. Every movement - body and facial - have emotion and reason There are a few places at the beginning that were unclear to me - the wife is asking the husband for a divorce because she wants to "go abroad" -- and it seems as if she wants him and their 11-year old daughter to come, that perhaps they may have even planned for this and requested visas together -- but the husband refuses to lave his house-bound father with Alzhheimers. There is something in there about 40 days, and two weeks, and then she goes to her mother's a short car ride away. Between reading and listening, something got lost in the translation for me, I guess.
The daughter, Termah, is bright, solemn, and smart. She is being tutored for exams. She has chosen to live with her father (because she knows her mom won't leave the country without her). Her father, Nader, who is a banker, has hired a woman (who brings her 4-year old daughter) to care for his father during the day while he works. This is where the drama really begins.
Great movie. It does seem to leave a major questions unanswered (what happened to the money that was supposedly stolen) and the ending leaves you trying to chose one or two scenarios that might be the possible outcome -- but this is GOOD thinking, GOOD questions, thinking that stays with you...
Excellent acting on all counts - from the four major players to the two children to the senile grandfather. A really good movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment