THE PAST Review

Release Date:   December 20, 2013 (Limited)
MPAA Rating:   PG-13
Director:   Asghar Farhadi
Film Pulse Score:   7/10

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi is back with a follow-up to his 2011 multiple award-winning film, A Separation, with the French-set The Past, dealing with secrets and perceived truths, as well as, perceived lies; which also happens to be his first film set outside of Iran. It’s difficult not to compare the two films, but when you really start to examine the contents of the two, one starts to notice a multitude of correlations which, in turn, leads to the question – Is The Past a French remake of A Separation?

Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns to France, years after abandoning his wife and her children, in order to grant Marie (Bérénice Bejo) a divorce. Upon arrival, Ahmed is quickly thrust into the complex emotional relationships between his former wife, her new fiancé Samir (Tahar Rahim) and her eldest daughter, Lucie (Pauline Burlet). It all starts with a simple favor; Ahmad is asked if he could have a word with Lucie to see why she’s so opposed to her mother’s upcoming marriage.

The script, co-written by Farhadi and Massoumeh Lahidji (Certified Copy), is deceptively simple, yet much like A Separation its simplistic narrative multiplies quickly in complexity when filtered through the prism of human perspective (or lack thereof) and relationships. The problem Lucie has with her mother’s marriage to Samir is that Samir’s current wife, comatose, lies in a hospital bed after a suicide attempt by laundry detergent. The film quickly becomes an examination into the reasoning behind Samir’s wife’s suicide and who, exactly, is to blame.

Once again, at the center of this examination of reasoning, blame, morality and ethics happens to be a teenage girl, much like Sarina Farhadi’s character in A Separation, Pauline Burlet’s Lucie is the driving force behind the film’s search for the truth with Mosaffa’s Ahmad trying in earnest to do the right thing.

The performances are (once again) another correlation to Farhadi’s A Separation, wherein the roles portrayed by the cast are the main highlight which benefits greatly from the well-thought out script. Ali Mosaffa brilliantly handles the emotional minefield he has inadvertently stepped into while providing most of the film’s moral compass. Bérénice Bejo deftly handles laying out said minefield while perfectly displaying a wide range emotions inherit within marrying a man whose wife lays in a coma; a coma that may or may not have been caused by her relationship with Samir. And lastly, Pauline Burlet delivers a fantastic performance as the guilt-ridden teenager adrift in a churning sea of emotion, judgment and shame.

The only real substantial difference between A Separation and The Past is, the former is set in Iran and the latter, France. Both deal with a traumatic event centered around a helpless victim while a member of the help holds the key to the truth. Of course, all of this takes place during a marital separation, as well.

So while…yes…The Past might be a slight French remake of A Separation, it should be noted that A Separation is damn near close to a modern masterpiece and with The Past, Farhadi does create a handful of tweaks and adjustments to the story to keep it slightly at a distance from its Oscar-winning predecessor. One thing’s for sure and that is, Farhadi seems to effortlessly create emotionally-charged relationship dramas that are at once, simple and humanistic while also being densely layered in emotional complexities.