The Past
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Cast: Ali Mosaffa, Bérénice Bejo, Tahar Rahim
Length: 130 minutes
Country: France
Ahmad comes back to France to settle his divorce with Marie who is now living with another man, Samir, and his son Fouad. Desperately fond of Lucie and Léa, Marie’s children, Ahmad will not leave until every secret is revealed and the house is in peace.
If I was asked to describe The Past (Le Passé) in a couple of words I would say: Greek tragedy. In theatre, Greek tragedies used to explore family drama and conjure the deepest fears of humankind. Even today family drama is a genre that everyone can understand and relate to; a powerful means of travelling through the state of modern mixed families beyond dishonestly happy pictures.
Farhadi takes the audience along in an enlightening journey: if Ahmad is the catalyst who enters the crooked universe of Marie, Samir is the hero who cannot control his partner, his son or his own destiny. Samir is definitely the most interesting character because he does not seem to fit in the house, and still Farhadi manages to make him the origin of all the problems but never the solution. His invisible presence is a burden to everyone and he is destined to remain silent while everyone else seems to have the right to talk and act on his back.
Characterisation will be definitely admired by the audience. All the characters, even the more innocent ones, like the children, seem to fit incredibly well in a world of tragedy. Ahmad, for example, enters the house with ease, and even when Marie repeatedly asks him to leave, the audience perceives in the tone of her voice or witnesses in her eyes that she wants him there more than ever: to save her from Samir’s inevitable fall. Ahmad arrives as an angel who has listened to the children’s prayers and sets emotional bombs from one character to another until they all start blowing up one after the other. It is only when the whole truth is revealed that his work can be considered done and he is allowed to leave physically and spiritually from the hearts of the members of the family.
What is remarkable about Farhadi’s work is that the secrets of the story do not really draw attention to themselves. If one expects heartbreaking dramatic twists, fortunately, one will be disappointed. The audience is swallowed by the narrative and forgets to attempt deciphering the signs.
This film argues that behind every crime there is always a possibility of redemption.
The experience of following the quarrels of the characters is enhanced by the almost complete absence of non-diegetic music. Farhadi uses silence instead to express what is going on in the character’s minds. This realistic technique is absorbing because it forces the audience to concentrate on every little noise of the family’s ordinary life and on the power of their voices when they start having arguments. Realism is in fact the most important aesthetic choice of the director. He was able to transform every small action of everyday life into a life lesson: when Fouad, for instance, knocks over the paint on the floor and is reprimanded by Marie, the audience wants to take the place of the mother and act differently. Fortunately the anger of the audience is quickly calmed by the sensitive Ahmad who cannot bear all that suffering.
Sensitivity is definitely another important theme of the director: firstly he decides to show a character as guilty of something and then he explains the reasons behind his actions to the audience. Characters normally do not avoid confrontation and confess their mistakes, and because of this, every single one of them, even those who have committed horrible crimes, are forgiven by the audience. I feel that this film argues that behind every crime there is always a possibility of redemption for those who can see what they have done wrong.
I will end by praising the beauty of the images of this film, and especially because they seem to originate from real life and not from the brush of the director. There are many still shots (as the one above) that are more meaningful than thousands of words. The Past is definitely a must see for those who want to reunion of style, emotion and life in a single experience.
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