“When two people see each other after 4 years and still fight together, it shows that there is something unsolved between them.”
Sometimes it’s a lot, lot easier to rely things with logic, not from feelings or emotions. But unfortunately, you can’t do that with relationships. Recently I read an article in that many Japanese people don’t want to get married or be in a relationship. They say because it’s too complicated. The point is, many people today don’t want to be in a serious relationship because it can be messy. Asghar Farhadi’s latest film, The Past or Le Passé (2013) for example, shows how complicated relationships are, especially when involving children and past lovers.
The story starts with Marie (Bérénice Bejo) picking up her soon-to-be ex-husband, Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) in the airport. Ahmad’s intention to come to Paris is to finalize their divorce and to visit Marie’s kids, whom he treats like his own children. Ahmad soon learn that Marie is now in a relationship with a man named Samir (Tahar Rahim) and wants to marry him. Also, Marie’s oldest daughter, Lucie (Pauline Burlet) doesn’t get along with her mother and especially with Samir. With the request of Marie, Ahmad tries to find out why Lucie always gets home late. Lucie explains that she doesn’t want her mother to marry Samir, because she thinks that Samir’s in-a-coma wife commit suicide because of Marie and Samir’s relationship. Meanwhile, Samir seems anxious with Ahmad’s visit to the house, since he and Marie still fights and seem to have unresolved issues. Ahmad, being the visitor, learns more hidden truths between Marie and Lucie, and he seems to be the only neutral thing between both sides.
With this film and Farhadi’s previous film, A Separation (2011), who won Best Foreign Film in Oscar, it’s pretty clear that Farhadi is an expert on exposing the complication of human’s situations, their personal interests and an impact of divorced parents. The power of the plot and script is amazing, how he reveal one situation to another. One problem isn’t over and the other one arrives, but with a good timing. Flavored with human’s emotional situation and hectic lives. No actor appear unnecessary, each have their own background. Like In A Better World (2010), where the story angle is from a husband who’s about to separate with his wife, found the messy situation and try to decrease the pressure of problems around. Again, the wife is the emotional and angry side, perhaps because woman’s personality is more sensitive and complicated. But The Past has more twisted situation and have more ‘heat’.
The problem is with Marie, she isn’t just a mother, but also a woman in love with married guy, his wife now in a coma. And added to the complication, each Marie and Samir have kids, who needs to adapt their relationship. How can one be in such complicated situation? That’s my question too. Unfortunately, yes someone living in this decade can. Unlike her (about-to-be) little brother and little sister, Lucie is almost a grown woman and sees her mother’s situation more clearly, it’s harder for her to see her mother always failing in relationships. Possibly the only soothing relationship in this movie is seeing Lucie opens up and trust Ahmad, and how Ahmad can be reliable and have cool head even when everything is messy.
Perhaps the word to explain how The Past can be so complicated, is because it shows how harmful human ego can be. Being a mother and also have a job, with failing relationships, forces Marie to be independent and the only adult in the house she lives in. Therefore she’s used to see Lucie to be a little kid, where Lucie actually starts growing up and allowed to have an opinion. When both claim to be right, it’s hard to get a middle path and solution. Thankfully, Ahmad’s visit, though strange to Samir and his kid, actually helps the harmony of the house.
The role Marie was offered to Marion Cotillard, but she dropped out because of scheduling conflict. But if it were Cotillard who played Marie, then there’s no doubt she’ll play it Cotillard way. Meaning, her own excellent way. But Bérénice Bejo actually one of the things that made me want to watch The Past. And she’s proven to be the great element surprise of the movie. Very different from the cheerful and lovable aspiring artist in The Artist (2011), Bejo plays an emotional and hard-headed woman who is currently in love with a married man. Believe me, that’s a complicated role and she nailed it. Ali Mosaffa did a natural performance of a wise ex-husband and father figure to Lucie. I was impressed with Pauline Burlet who plays Lucie, this beautiful teenage girl have some potential. Seeing her and Bérénice Bejo acted together, made an intense relationship of mother and daughter. And good looks run in the family.
As for Tahar Rahim as Samir, might not appear much in the first scenes but the story definitely comes down to his story in the end. Like A Separation, The Past invite us to an emotional ride and twisted conflict in Ahmad and Marie, how to start a new phase of life, one must resolve the past first. And how in relationships, it’s important to listen and compromise.
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