This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel review last year’s Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film (and nominee for Best Original Screenplay), A Separation. This complex and riveting film is one part legal thriller, two parts family drama, and three parts tense moral ambiguity – listen to us try to unpack its various dimensions below (while also trying feebly to remember the name of Iran’s currency!) (40:34).

May contain NSFW language.

FilmWonk rating: 9/10

Show notes:

• Music for this episode comes from Sattar Oraki’s original score for the film.
• This episode contains vague spoilers for the 2003 film Confidence.
• Sarina Farhadi, who plays Termeh, is indeed the daughter of writer/director Asghar Farhadi.
• In case our profound (and admitted) ignorance didn’t make this clear, the Iranian unit of currency is neither the ducat (which is European) nor the shekel (which is…Hebrew, whoops) – it’s the rial, named for a currency that originated in Portugal.

Listen above, or download: A Separation (right-click, save as).