The Past Analysis

 The Past

Written & Directed by: Asghar Farhadi

The way Asghar Farhadi seamlessly mixes family drama and mystery - two genres which seem so far away from each other is so interesting. The film starts with a simple setup and a few characters – like in every Asghar Farhadi’s film. As the film goes on, with every additional detail that gets added into the story, the story gets deeper and complex. By complex, I don’t mean Nolan-ish complex – here it is the relationships that become more layered with every detail. This film is similar to A Separation, in terms of the narrative of the film – there is one seemingly simple inciting incident, but the revelation of every detail adds up to conflicts between characters and fleshes out interesting drama. For example, in this film - whether she read the mail or not, one simple detail - changes a lot of things for every character in the film and this detail is dealt in a way mystery films are treated. In another scene, Marie says that she trusts Samir and hence she is pregnant, Samir says that it was an accident - the dynamics change now and she says that she could've got it aborted, they again change and he replies that she didn't abort because she wanted to convince herself to be sure of Samir. 

The best part about Asghar Farhadi's films is the way he explores the psyche of his characters, they say something, they mean something else, but the other character realizes this later when they know more things and they bring it up then. For example, Ahmad asks Marie why she told him that she's pregnant just before the meeting of the divorce, after he knows the entire story. The ending of this film was so moving, I reacted so strongly to that shot. It completes the arc of Samir, and in fact every character - all the dishevelled mess comes to a conclusion with that one shot. This film too has all the trademark Asghar Farhadi qualities - moral ambiguity, no background score, cut-throat scene transitions, brilliant usage of foley - apart from these I felt that this film had a sense of color as well.