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“Yet since his film’s premiere early this year, Asghar Farhadi has found success inside and outside his home country with “A Separation,” the film resonating with audiences who read it alternately as a deeply felt domestic drama and a finely crafted sociopolitical allegory. When the film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, it walked away with the Golden Bear, the festival’s top prize, as well as awards recognizing the film’s lead actor and actress. The film, which opens in Los Angeles on Dec. 30, has gone on to be one of the most universally celebrated of the year. It was recently still running a rare 100% rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on more than two dozen reviews. It was a box office hit within Iran and was chosen to represent the country as its submission for the Academy Award for best foreign language film………..”
 
I find it interesting that under the repressive theocracy Iranian films have thrived. Arguably the best films in the Middle East over the past three decades have been produced in Iran, with many of them winning international prizes. I have always thought that is because film-makers, like all artists and authors, need to get more creative and more subtle in their messages under less open regimes. (North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the Taliban would be exceptions to this rule).

The Iranians may have some competition at the Oscars. My unreliable source tells me fhe Saudi government is working on a film about the life and times of their Mufti Shaikh al Al Al Shaikh. Meanwhile the al-Nahayan rulers of the UAE plan new film about their late father Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahayan. The film may star Sean Connery or Abe Vigoda (assuming he is alive): one of them will play Zayed, the other his brother Shakhboot whom he overthrew and made to disappear along with his sons. None of the films will cover the loves and marriages of the two worthies.
Cheers
mhg


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