Over the past 30-odd years, we’ve grown used to thinking of Iran and the United States as enemies — from the Ayatollah Khomeini dubbing America “The Great Satan” to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, which has led President Obama to spearhead international sanctions and some of his Republican rivals to talk of bombing Iran.
It’s beyond my pay grade to say what all this means in geopolitical terms. But I do know that such enmity has had one obvious cultural consequence: It has stopped most Americans from seeing, or even wanting to see, Iranian movies. That’s too bad, for over the past quarter-century, Iran has produced some of the best and most artful filmmakers anywhere. They take us inside the Iran we almost never see, the country as it’s actually lived day to day.
No Iranian film has done this more accessibly than A Separation. Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, this domestic drama is smart, beautifully acted and astonishingly gripping — it grabs you like a crackerjack thriller. I’m not kidding when I say that it’s better than any of the Hollywood films being touted for the Oscar.
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