The opening: passports and official papers being photocopied, from the POV of the copier! Yes, I don't think I've seen that before.
A powerful, devastating film in which things go from bad to worse as a mother moves out of the house, leaving her husband and teenage daughter to look after his Alzheimer's father and an unreliable carer. Great acting, all seem totally believable. Particularly should mention the carer's unstable husband Shahab Hosseini and his daughter Kimia Hosseini (I don't think they're related). With Payman Maadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat.
In particular you feel for the couple's daughter, played by the director's daughter Sarina Farhadi (they were also reteamed in 2021's A Hero), who experiences everyone lying and has to make difficult decisions alone.
Won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, making Farhadi the first Iranian winner.
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| The beginning... |
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| ...and the end. The symbolic separation couldn't be clearer. |
Photographed by Mahmoud Kalari. Very distinctive from the other Iranian films we're been watching, this is fast paced and incisively edited by Haedeh Safiyari, who also cut Farhadi's The Salesman - one of our Invisible Women. Because of her I've just bought No One Knows About Persian Cats! The framing and filming within the couple's apartment feels very claustrophobic.
The one thing I knew about Farhadi before watching this is that one of his favourite films is The Apartment.
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