“A Separation” is an Iranian film that you can find on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Vudu, or pay for it on YouTube for only $3.99. The movie focus on Simin and Nader, a married couple that it’s facing an opportunity to leave the country a better life, but Nader doesn’t want to leave because of his ill father. That is when Simin asks him for a divorce, she is angry at him because he rather think only about his father, and not their 11-year-old daughter; Termeh. Simin takes Nader to a jury to ask permission for the divorce and the child’s custody. The jury neglects the custody of the child and the divorce since both have to agree. This means that they are not leaving the country.
When Simin is leaving to her parents’ house, her father-in-law doesn’t want to let go her hand. She doesn’t even says goodbye to her daughter or her husband. When she is in her car, tears are coming down her face. Throughout the movie there are a lot of difficulties that the family face. One of them is that the woman that worked taking care of the Nader’s father has a dispute with Nader that ends by him pushing her, and this caused a miscarriage.
The cultural differences that I found are a lot, between Iran and my native country; Dominican Republic. The firsts differences were the way of dressing and the language. In Iran, the women wear a hijab because it’s the law, and men should always were long pants, and shirts with long sleeves. In my country the clothes doesn’t matter, we are allow to wear either long or short clothes. In Iran they speak Persian, in my country we speak Spanish.
The similarities that I found were; the weather at least in the summer, is very hot just like in my country. The hot temperature, in both countries, can go up to 97 degrees, rarely in the hundreds. Also, as I saw in the film, Iranians are religious people, most of them practice the Shi’i Islam. One example is when the woman that took care of Nader’s father called a number and asked if she changed the clothes from a sick and elderly man was considered a sin. In my country, most of the people, are catholic.
The characters in the movie have different values. Simin would have appreciate if Nader accepted the opportunity of going to another country, she was disappointed in him by choosing staying with his father instead of having better opportunities in another country, and not thinking about his daughter’s future. Nader care a lot about his father. When Simin asked him if his father knew he was his son (the father has Alzheimer), Nader responded that he knew he was his father’s son. The daughter was a little mad at them because she saw them as selfish people by only thinking about them.
This movie was a little hard to watch since I didn’t like how women were treated. They couldn’t do some things without their husband’s consent. I also felt sad about Nader’s father; how he couldn’t do almost anything by himself because of his illness.
Thanks for reading! I hope you watch the movie.