Strongly recommended. Demonstrating that his Academy Award for A Separation was no fluke, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi roars back with The Past, another brilliant unraveling of marriage. As before, no one’s totally innocent or unredeemed, making for a tense, painful viewing. Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) - - looking even more now like Natalie Wood - - is at the heart of the drama, an onion that takes the entire 140 minutes to unpeel. Actually, the plot is convoluted enough to be mildly distracting. As Bejo’s daughter, Pauline Burlet, last playing a ten-year-old Edith Piaf (La Vie En Rose), aches her part into the camera. The male actors - - Tahar Rahim (The Prophet) as Bejo’s current boyfriend and Ali Mosaffa, as her ex-husband - - lend solid support. The Past was nominated for a Golden Globe, the Palm d’Or and was offered by Iran to Oscar, who inexplicably passed on a nomination. I’ll give it a nod.
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