The past is never where you think you left it

What a difference a decade can make. Just 10 years ago, director Asghar Farhadi had yet to release his first film, but today he is one of the hottest contemporary Iranian directors around. Every film he has created has won rafts of awards at various festivals; his last film A Separation, won critical acclaim across the board, and beat off stiff competition to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011. He is now back again, with a film that explores the hidden drama within everyday lives. The Past is like a box of forgotten love letters, a series of scenes that bring back happy memories, but also open old wounds. Berenice Bejo, whose breakout role as Peppy Miller in the silent film The Artist merited a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and Ali Mosaffa star as a married couple going through a divorce. Having been separated for four years, Ahmad (Mosaffa) returns to Paris from Iran to finalise the legal divorce from his soon-to-be ex-wife Marie (Bejo); upon arrival he finds that Marie has not booked a hotel for him, and instead he must stay with her, her two daughters from a previous marriage, and Fouad, a young boy who is the son of Marie’s current beau Samir, played by Tahar Ramin - best known for his role in the 2009 film Un Prophete. We soon find out that Samir is still married, but his wife is in a coma following a suicide attempt, and has been for the past year or so. This complicated web of relationships is put under strain, both from Ahmad’s visit, and the dark secret Marie’s daughter Lucie has been hiding; as the film progresses relations break down, and the family is brought to breaking point. While Ahmad is annoyed at having to endure exposure to both Samir, and his son, the married couple relationship that begins to re-emerge between Ahmad and Marie throughout the film makes Samir feel like a stranger in the house; there is one particularly brilliant scene in which he is mistaken by a delivery man for a handyman, at the house for a job, and is left standing bewildered in the garden Bejo is stunning as Marie; both sympathetic and maleficent, she cuts a emotional but brittle figure. Eagre to anger her husband, she forces him to endure the presence of her new boyfriend, and just before they finalise the divorce tells him that she is pregnant. These actions are what begin to drive the family apart, yet the motives driving Marie remain understandable, and the audience can easily empathise with her. She is a woman on the edge, taking to chain smoking as things begin to pile up on top of her. Bejo manages this multi-faceted role with nuance and ease, giving up a wonderfully visceral performance that makes it unsurprising that she picked up the Best Actress award at Cannes. Ali Mosaffa’s restrained, almost impassive presence becomes a rock upon which the relationships rest, making the end scenes, in which he is at his most enraged, all the more shocking. Like A Separation, The Past is a film that deals with the baggage that relationships can bring - particularly how they end. The film carries the air of an epic tragedy about it, and the audience can foresee the storm clouds looming on the horizon, but it never feels bleak. Under Farhadi’s direction, the film is a grown-up, serious dissection of relationships; despite some moments that threaten to spill over into melodrama, The Past is definitely one to watch for this year’s Academy Awards.