A SEPARATION (Farhadi, 2011) - There’s a reason I tend to avoid this kind of movie: I usually don’t like them. Which would be fine, except I really feel like I should - the problem isn’t the quality of the films, which - in this case, at least - is pretty impeccable. It’s just so intensely miserable that watching it makes you feel miserable, too - and well, I tend not to enjoy that. It makes it difficult for me to see the merits of a film that’s so devoid of joy, so drab and dour and honestly a slog to get through.
Oddly, perhaps, I do like melodrama. But melodrama isn’t sad or miserable, it’s tragic, usually in a grand, heightened way. They might make you cry, but they don’t make you feel like life is hopeless. They don’t put you in the shoes of people whose lives were a slog to begin with (due to: marital difficulties, a parent with Alzheimer, poverty - take your pick) and then, through relatively small and human mistakes, get increasingly worse.
So the year ends on a rather downbeat note. I’ve made a first year-in-review post on the old blog, with a ranking of all newer films seen this year, including this one. Check it out here.
