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chillywilly

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:41 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8251 Location: Salt Lake City

Watched Midnight In Paris last night on the DVD screen.

I see why this won best original screenplay. While there were some minor drags in the plot (the multiple trips back in history seemed a bit long), overall this was a great Woody Allen film. The characters were well placed in their scenes and I saw the many parts of other Woody Allen movies mingled into throughout the 100 min running time.

This is probably Owen Wilson's most serious role to date and he does a masterful job as Gil Pender. Rachel McAdams was good, but I could have also seen Scarlett Johansen in this role as well.

The attention to detail in the history was good, coming up with characters that I hadn't heard of since my high school lit classes.

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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend"

billyweeds

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:25 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit wrote:

Nader and Simin, A Separation is a good solid engaging drama.

What is Nader and Simin???

gromit

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 12:24 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

billyweeds wrote:

gromit wrote:

Nader and Simin, A Separation is a good solid engaging drama.

What is Nader and Simin???

The names of the main characters in the film you loved. The original title is Jodaeiye Nader az Simin. Nader and Simin, A Separation is the English title used on the film festival circuit in Europe. I like it better than the more generic A Separation used in the US.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:43 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit wrote:

billyweeds wrote:

gromit wrote:

Nader and Simin, A Separation is a good solid engaging drama.

What is Nader and Simin???

See, here's where you and I diverge. (Well, in addition to your not adoring the movie as much as I do.)

A Separation is not a generic title. Separation would be. So would The Separation.

But "A Separation" has implications beyond the story at hand. It implies--and I'm sure was meant to--that all across Iran there are similar separations going on, dictated by the anti-female bias of the country as well as the generally demeaning nature of the government. This "separation" is only one of thousands which the horrible set-up of Iran has dictated. It is therefore "A Separation" rather than "THE Separation" or just "Separation."

gromit

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 10:51 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

I'll stick with the original title.
But maybe better to think of it as a general title, applicable to others in Iran -- but unfortunately, in my mind, to other films as well.

I like the specificity of Nader and Simin, A Separation, which is what the filmmakers named the film, which focuses on the specific characters, and also has the broader implications.

I was thinking a bit more about this film. Everything in the screenplay has a role later on in the film. After the initial judicial scene, the first time we see them at home, movers are carrying a piece of furniture. They complain about which floor they have to go to. The crucial information in that scene is the wife taking money to pay them the extra charge.

But I wonder if that was also setting up the class distinctions between this middle class family and the workers. Using Ground for the first floor and then counting floors above that would most likely be the British colonial legacy. It's a quaint older system which makes perfectly good sense back in a time when buildings tended to have only a handful of floors at most. I've experienced this in Hong Kong, where some buildings I've been in have the British system in the elevator but then on the wall on each floor they have the American/international system. So you get off the elevator on the 5th floor and it has a large 6 on the wall.

So I interpreted the moving dispute as signaling that this is a well-off family using the British system. Class distinctions play a significant role in the film. I also found it interesting how the husband has an at times physically intimidating presence towards his wife, then he's confronted with being intimidated by the unemployed worker.

I wonder what other cultural markers Americans might miss.
I read somewhere that in the final scene they are all wearing black as though someone died. I didn't notice this. And black is certainly not uncommon for the working class women in the film, though Simin and her daughter tend to wear (presumably less religious) greys and other colors. I don't recall them all in black, though I do remember them seeming more formal. Interesting, because if the grandfather has died, then that reason for not leaving is gone, and the separation seems more permanent, and the daughter's choice more wide open. You wonder if this whole experience created a bond between her and her father or a rift.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

bartist

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 11:10 am

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6958 Location: Black Hills

I think the father/daughter bond is weakened because the daughter is at the age where she's seeing all the lies everywhere and the last thing she wants is a rationale from Nader that the lie was to "protect" her.

Regarding the disappearance from the money box....I didn't see that as crucial information. It didn't matter where the missing money had actually gone. It was clear already that Razi wouldn't be stealing money, and that Nader was making the accusation more out of anger at the treatment of his father than from any rational basis. I saw it with someone who didn't catch the thing with the movers and the extra stairs, and figured that Simin had taken extra money to travel with. It wasn't really clear to me until we talked after the film, and were piecing that together. I do see what you mean, however, about the British floor-counting system being an aspect of the class division, so the furniture scene is still useful.

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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

gromit

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 1:19 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

bartist wrote:

I mostly felt that way. But at the same time, the daughter also lied for the father, so they both had fallen into the same trap. Whether that forms a bond or pushes them apart is hard to say. There's also the fact that the daughter might be in need of a new school, which would make it easier to go with mom -- abroad or elsewhere in the city.

As for the money, I thought his suspicion was that the woman had taken money and fled, didn't expect her to return. A further insult/outrage. I was also uncertain if the mother took the money for the movers or for her exile from the family. I decided on both.
I think the film logically meant it to be for the movers, but since her counting the money comes in a discussion with the daughter about leaving, that appears to be the proximate cause. A little unclear actually.

I have to say that foreign money in a film is often a distraction for me. I start wondering how much it's worth in USD, especially when the amount is significant. In old films, I end up wondering how much say 50,000 Francs equaled in the 1950's. In N&S, A Sep, I started wondering about the large amounts and big wads of cash, and started thinking about the likelihood of significant inflation in Iran. It seems the exchange rate is about 11,000 Rials to the Dollar. So $100 makes you an Iranian millionaire. Inflation is around 9%.
_____________________________________

Since the film was made, the recent US sanctions battered the Rial, which dropped to an official rate of 12,260 Rials to the Dollar, less on the black market, and apparently a crash in value to 17,000 briefly after the January sanctions and saber rattling.

They plan to lop off 3 or 4 zeroes and launch a new currency.

Quote:

A website to poll the public on the redenomination plan was launched on 21 July 2011; the public was allowed to vote on how many zeroes to cut and what the new currency's name should be. Preliminary results indicate that four zeroes will be cut (in line with the government's recommendation) and that the name will be changed to Iranian parsi

The West likes to say how undemocratic Iran is, but I wouldn't expect the US to poll its citizens on any such currency issue. Turkey did a similar revaluation of its currency in 2005. So now they use New Turkish Lira.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

gromit

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 2:10 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Read an interesting reading of Young Adult. I had commented on the warped motivation of the main character. But someone grounded her warped behavior by relating her reaction to the baby announcement to the later revelation that she had aborted (miscarried?) Buddy's child years back. I seemed to remember it as being an abortion, but the write-up I saw called it a miscarriage. In any case, they astutely noted that as the trigger for her irrational behavior. Further they noted the big wine stain on her front as a symbol of her lost pregnancy, and for the rest of the film she walks around wearing this physical manifestation or her inner turmoil.
And I'd add that she irrationally blames Buddy's wife for causing her pain/stain.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

whiskeypriest

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:29 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."

billyweeds wrote:

gromit wrote:

billyweeds wrote:

gromit wrote:

Nader and Simin, A Separation is a good solid engaging drama.

What is Nader and Simin???

So many Separations.

Between the divorcing spouses.

Between Razieh and Hodjat, stemming from the cultural inability of Rezieh to confide in her husband.

Between Termeh and her mother, physically, when she moves out.

Between Termeh and her ideal of her father when she finds out she is lying.

Between Termeh and her own conscience as she lies to save her father.

Between Termeh and the parent she is forced to choose against.

Between Nader and his father, and his father and reason, as he slowly deteriorates into the anonymity of Alzheimer's.

Between all the litigants and witnesses and the truth as their testimony slowly solidify into immovable positions.

Between the characters' feelings and their words and actions, particularly Nader and Simin.

Between the profoundly religious and the humanists.

Between the middle class family and the poor family.

Between Rezieh and her unborn child.

So many more. So many separations. So few unitings.

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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed?

bartist

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:33 pm

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6958 Location: Black Hills

Thanks, wasn't aware of the move afoot to "keep it Rial" by lopping of 0's.

Quote:

The West likes to say how undemocratic Iran is, but I wouldn't expect the US to poll its citizens on any such currency issue.

Interesting point. Would love to see a poll here on the usefulness of pennies as currency. If it were up to the people, I suspect it would be retired as the nuisance coin that it is. We have computers and calculators - not hard to price items so they come out to round numbers with tax.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

bartist

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:38 pm

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6958 Location: Black Hills

Oops, just posted past you, WP. Nice list. Termieh seems to be in the middle of all of it...remarkable the degree to which she keeps it together.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

Marc

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:03 am

Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424

I'm reviewing film and music at SXSW for Google and Mastercard's site. Sadly, I'm forced to write in a very generic style, so don't hate me for selling out.

Most of the cool photography is by Mirgun (street art, tattoos, breakfast tacos, BBQ, celebrity photos). She's what makes this site shine. Video footage is shot by me.

http://tapintoaustin2012.com/

marantzo

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:57 am

Guest

Very well done promotion for SXSW and Austin, Marc and Mirgun. How come they don't credit you with the reviews and the videos, Marc? Mirgun is always mentioned when her photo's are shown. Is this some kind of male hating feminism? Laughing

(though most wouldn't know if the name Mirgun were masculine or feminine)

Last edited by marantzo on Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:32 am; edited 1 time in total

Marj

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:37 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan

Marc wrote:

Nevertheless, Marc, the writing is still good.

I was writing reviews for a magazine for a few years, and you know the editor rewrote my stuff until all the life was completely removed. I got used to it, which made it worse still. Stay pissed, Marc.

Say, "Hi" to Mirgun for me. Her work is great!

Marc

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 3:13 am

Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424

Thanks Marj.

Gary, The writers get no credit on that website. And I can't be critical. I slip in a little jab now and then but for the most part must be neutral.

All times are GMT - 5 Hours

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