The Past (2013): Exquisite Domestic Drama

The latest motion picture from Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi is a fascinating domestic drama about a family – in this case a not-fully-integrated extended family. In some respects, The Past ["Le Passé"] is a sort of sequel to Farhadi’s previous film, the Academy Award winning A Separation (2011), one of my favorite movies of the last several years. Whereas the prior picture depicted the wrenching breakup of a marriage, the characters in The Past are confronting what happens next: the aftermath of divorce and the complications of a new relationship. Both are exquisite, realistic, seemingly non-judgmental examinations of the effects of these events on essentially decent people. 

A Separation was an Iranian movie, set in modern Tehran. The Past is a hybrid: a French production by an Iranian director, in French, set in modern Paris, with a blended cast of French and Iranian actors. Both films examine how miscommunication, emotional reticence, and unexamined expectations can lead to misunderstanding, loss of trust, acrimony, and other corroding emotional responses in relationships. As the title suggests, Farhabi’s latest is also about how the past hangs around and - at least with respect to our lovers and loved ones – inevitably inpacts our present.

The story unravels slowly. At the center are Marie, played by Bérénice Bejo [The Artist (2011)] and Ahmad, played by the Iranian actor Ali Mosaffa. The movie opens at an airport where Ahmad is just arriving and Marie is there to receive him; but they are separated by a wall of glass (shades of A Separation) and can only communicate by gesture (shades of The Artist). A warm, if tentative, greeting is soon undermined by the reveal that Marie and Ahmad have been separated for some time, and he has returned only in order to sign their divorce papers. In the car, the two quickly start bickering, because Marie did not book a hotel room for Ahmad as he had requested. She didn’t trust him to actually show up (“like last time”), she says. Besides, she thought it’d be better for him to stay at her place so he can reunite with her kids, his step-daughters, and particularly to have a chat with the older one, Lucie, who has been “impossible” lately. The car ride leaves Ahmad quietly dismayed and perturbed.

Berenice Pejo is one of the most beautiful actresses in cinema today.   Ali Mossafa is a very attractive Persian man. Luckily for us, both are terrific actors. Together, they make a compelling, um, ex-couple – one that may have some unfinished business.

Arriving at Marie’s home,  Ahmad is warmly greeted  by Marie’s younger daughter Lea (Jeanne Jestin) who is playing with Fouad (Elyes Aguis), the young son of Marie’s fiancée, Samir. Fouad is a troubled kid – suspicious of all adults, easy to anger, fearful of abandonment. He feels displaced; this is not his home, but, as he admits to Ahmed, he can’t go back home, because “nobody lives there anymore”. His mother, it turns out, is comatose in hospital. Samir and he have moved in with Marie and her family. Elyes Aguis is an amazing kid actor – he reminded me of the terrific Quvanzhane Wallis in Beasts Of The Southern Wild a couple years ago, he’s that good.

Eventually, dour Lucie (Pauline Berlet) slinks in. Ahmed tries to talk to her, and learns that she’s desperately upset that her mother has allowed Samir to move in. She labels him a jerk – not that he’s done anything to her. Rather, Marie’s liaison with Samir has triggered Lucie’s fear of abandonment. “Since I was born, my mom's changed guys 3 times. They come, stay a few years, then leave. Always the same story.” And there’s more: Lucie discloses that Samir’s wife is in a coma as a result of an attempted suicide. She blames this on her mother’s affair with Samir. “I just sleep here,” she says gloomily. Like Fouad, Lucie has nowhere else to go. Pauline Berlet, just 16 when this film was made, holds down the role of the distraught Lucie, in some respects the emotional center of this story, just beautifully.

Not long after we meet Lucie, we are finally introduced to Marie’s fiancé. Samir (Tahar Rahim) is a sincere, attractive Arab man. Samir, a not unsympathetic character, is understandably brittle with the stress of his circumstances. He is running a dry cleaning business. He clearly loves Marie, but he still has feelings for and responsibilities toward his comatose wife, not to mention a load of guilt.  Then too, his son’s unhappiness is concerning, and on top of all this, there’s his frustration at the hostility coming from Lucie. The arrival of Ahmad on the scene feels like a further undermining threat.

Through all this Marie is trying to reconcile with her daughter, hold the family together, get her divorce concluded, and keep her romance with Samir from unraveling. Ahmad is bemusedly caught up in this emotional storm.

That’s just the set up.

The rest of the plot is like a chinese puzzle, with new information leading to new resonances in every scene.  Farhadi, a master of the domestic drama and an actor’s director, carefully and exquisitely peels away the layers of the onion, and allows his cast to respond. The pace is leisurely, but not slow. Much of what’s going on is unspoken; it is written on the faces of the characters, as they react to one another and to new revelations. Each of the actors, Bejo, Mossafa, Rahim, and Berlet, give beautifully nuanced performances. Our understanding of and compassion for these people grows and grows throughout the movie’s 130 minutes. The story is told so skillfully and artfully that I, at least, was surprised when it ended. I wanted more.

As in A Separation, there are no villains, just decent people trying to deal with a complicated and difficult situation. There are some indelible scenes – such as the excruciatingly long, silent awkwardness when Ahmad and Samir find themselves sitting alone together on either side of the kitchen table at Marie’s, waiting for her return, not knowing what they can say to one another, unwilling to say what’s really on their minds. Another little scene that grabbed me was one of the young kids, Lea and Fouad bickering with one another about culpability in a manner that beautifully (and unintentionally) reflects the behavior of the grown-ups.  Throughout are many touching moments of emotional honesty, of new understanding, and of great sensitivity from each of these people.

All in all, The Past is a thoughtful, intelligent, deeply involving, carefully observed human drama. I recommend it.

The Past is available on DVD from Netflix, and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, and Xfinity OnDemand.