The Past

After experiencing the near-perfect construction of Asghar Farhadi's Oscar-winning A Separation and his belatedly released About Elly, one might be inclined to complain that the director's narrative string-pulling is a little too evident in The Past. Certainly, there is a little clunkiness about the climactic twists, but such concerns only arise after the credits have finished rolling and the film has released us from its grip, and they quickly seem irrelevant against the bigger picture of what Farhadi is striving for here.

He has created another wholly absorbing examination of secrets and lies, littering his screenplay with revelations that explode like depth charges, and deftly shifting our sympathies and our perception of each character as each new piece of information comes to light. There is no judgement in Farhadi's approach, just boundless compassion and curiosity as he observes these decent, flawed people trying to negotiate morally complex and emotionally fraught situations. The Past is clearly the work of a master dramatist, and precious few filmmakers in world cinema are currently operating at Farhadi's level. [Philip Concannon]