Review of The Past (2013) by Psychefan — 16 Feb 2014

This is one one the best movies I've ever seen. Farhadi brilliantly takes us on a roller coaster ride through the relationships among the characters. We start with the relationship between a woman and her husband who returns to sign final divorce papers. He arrives at the airport and goes to baggage claim, but his suitcase has been lost. She sees him and tries to get his attention but can't. He finally sees her but there is a glass wall between them. One expects that this relationship will be examined more in depth. Instead, we careen to the mother-daughter relationship. The mother hopes the husband can help with the daughter's worsening behaviors. We then bounce to the mother-boyfriend relationship. The mother and husband are going through the final divorce procedure and the boyfriend is calling. He wants to know if he should accept the husband's damaged baggage which has been delivered to the house. A critic described the plot as meandering. I found it fascinating to go down the rabbit hole - but instead of straight down, we are redirected to tunnel after tunnel. We end in a place impossible to predict.

In addition to the roller coaster ride through these relationships, we and the characters gradually learn their secrets and motives as both known and unknown to themselves. We think we learn the truth, then it is violently ripped away. We are largely left adrift and with ambiguity, yet the story is still satisfying because it feels real. Being in the field of psychology, I was struck by the authenticity of the emotions, the misperceptions and the misplaced assumptions. I believe this movie captures the complexity of relationships, motives and human truth better than any I've seen in recent memory.