A Separation (2011)

Wow, I loved this movie.  It was Iran's submission for Best Foreign Language film and it took home the prize...which can sometimes mean that there is something crushingly downbeat pressed into the celluloid (so to speak)--but not so this time.  The cultural background of the movie is subtle, as it the story and the conflict.
The story revolves around a couple and their daughter.  Simin wants to leave Iran, and she wants to take her daughter Temreh with her.  Nader does not want to leave--he is caring for his father, who is in the later stages of Alzheimer's disease.  He doesn't follow commands, he doesn't speak much and he seems terribly confused, but Nader patiently cares for him, and stubbornly refuses to work with his wife towards a solution that they can both live with.  That may be a cultural thing, but it feels like there is real tension between them.

When Nader won't let Simin take Temreh, she can't leave Iran, but she can certainly leave her house.  She is frustrated by Nader, and he says nothing to her--not that he wants her to stay, not that he loves her, or needs her.  Temreh tries to get him to talk to her--because she, after all, is really in the middle.  She loves them both and they are quietly, persistently pulling her apart.  But Nader cannot do it.

So there is a situation that develops that tips the balance.  Nader needs Simin's help, and help him she does.  She clearly is attached to him, and a very capable woman--what is Nader's problem?  Again, the answer may be cultural.  It goes from bad to worse, and in the end Nader makes some choices that he is not proud of, and Temreh knows.  He involves her in the deception.  The back story all through this is the Iranian legal system, and the situation that exists.  It is a leisurely walk through what is an increasingly difficult story until what happens?  We do not know.