It
has been a very long time since a profound foreign-language film has this much
recognition and praise. In fact, this movie seems to have gain universal
praise, and that's saying something considering that this movie is placed in
the Third World cinema category. In the other years, guessing which Foreign
film will win is the same as guessing with a blindfold on. This year seemed to
have no contest whatsoever. The movie in itself speaks to a universal audience
with marital troubles, paternal issues, and even issues involving murder,
despite their Islamic culture that the Western culture is not too familiar
with.
The
movie starts with a family divorce with the mother wanting to leave the country
with her daughter due to the unsuitable living conditions and father wanting to
stay in order to help care for his elderly father who suffers from Alzheimer's.
The movie then follows up with a pregnant care taker who takes care of the
elderly father, only to leave in disaster as we find out that she tied the
father to the bed in order for him to not leave the house. There are also
allegations of theft and follows a miscarriage.
The
film later focuses on a back and forth argument over whose fault it was for the
miscarriage, as well as accusations over the truth. While all of this is
happening, we, the audience become witnesses. In order ways, we become the
jurors of this movie and simply watch and evaluate the evidence as everyone
shouts accusations back and forth. The movie becomes so unbearable that I
literally heard people crying in the theater, and yet the movie is about people
arguing and holding secrets. There are no obvious clichéd crying moments or
moments where we pity the main character.
I
applaud this movie with its bold and daring screenplay that does what screenplay
text book states. There is a written principle that's extremely hard to pull
off and that is to establish a rising action and make it rise like stair cases.
Even though this is what the text book example is and what everyone does, I
dare anyone to find a movie this year that follows that logic. To me, this
movie starts off with an interesting premise and as the movie goes on, the
situation only gets more interesting. So much that a part of me actually wanted
to stop watching this movie due to the situation while the other half wanted to
see how the movie will end.
Not
every character does the right thing. Not even the children in the movie. Everybody
has their flaws that situate itself appropriately in the movie. The father is
arrogant and too proud, the mother is persistent with leaving the family, the
daughter wants to live and defend her father, despite the danger and threats
from the care taker's husband, who really is always in a raging fit. Everybody
has their demons swept under the rug and in the end, no one is a bad guy nor
are they good guys. They are honest depictions of a situation that makes
everyone lose. It is very profound that the film sheds light on these normal
people as though they could be applied to any country and the story could still
be the same. Maybe instead of swearing on the Qu'ran, the main characters have
to swear on the bible, and the end result will still be the same. What I'm
saying is that this movie is flexible in its portrayal of people we might
consider the new "evil Middle-East" enemy, but deep down, we are also
like this family, we share their same ideals, and cultural boundaries have
nothing to do with it.
It
was pretty difficult choosing over whether this movie should be the best movie
of the year over The Tree of Life but
I think this decision is final. I think The
Tree of Life would become the new 2001:
A Space Odyssey, where it gives a sparse story in order for us to interpret
it on our own. This movie, on the other
hand, gives us everything and in the end, we still have to make it up for the
disbelief it left us in the end. The Tree
of Life was strikingly rich in its visual splendor while A Separation barely had any. In fact,
the movie had very little to no music. However, despite not having the
up-to-date camera, or the technical splendors that can only come out of the
wallet of a major studio, the movie aims at centering the one core goal of any
film and striking it perfectly, and that is telling a compelling story.
Although it is hands down the best foreign film of this year, I will officially
say that this movie is the best movie of the year.
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