Farhadi's ‘A Separation’ ranks 13th in Rolling Stone’s 50 best movies
December 22, 2019 - American monthly magazine Rolling Stone ranked Iranian Oscar-winning feature, ‘A Separation,’ directed by Asghar Farhadi, as the 13th best movie of the 2010s.
Film critics of the American monthly magazine Rolling Stone, including David Fear, Peter Travers, Katie Walsh, Amy Nicholson, Tim Grierson, and Jessica Kiang compiled a list of 50 best movies of the 2010s.
According to Rolling Stone, “The movies covered a lot of traditional types – blockbusters, arthouse films, indies, studio-sponsored hits (and misses), foreign-language films, docs, star vehicles, director-driven projects – and spanned the globe. They involved aliens, post-apocalyptic heroines, gangsters, literary icons, saints, sinners, killers, a monstrosity named Monsieur Merde and even, on occasion, normal human beings. Some reflected the times we lived in; some helped us escape them for a few hours. But above all, they each reminded us that, over the last ten years, there were lots of films that cracked us up, broke us apart, scared us, comforted us and made us feel a little closer to our fellow Homo sapiens.”
Some movies by world-known directors, such as Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’ (ranked 20th) and Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’ (ranked 23rd) are below the Iranian title in the list.
The Senior Editor of Rolling Stone and critic David Fear wrote “a major touchstone of modern Iranian cinema and a stunning example of how to mine drama from the simplest of conversational scenes,” about Farhadi’s flick.
The critic also noted that “Farhadi’s breakthrough movie reminds us that there are no heroes and villains in these types of stories. There are only people — loving, flawed, best-intentioned and perpetually screwed up people.”
Rolling Stone’s number one film of the past decade is ‘Moonlight’ (2016). ‘Parasite,’ a Korean film by Bong Joon-ho, is ranked 12th, just one place above ‘A Separation.’
Farhadi’s most famous movie, ‘A Separation’, grabbed global recognition as the first Iranian movie to win an Oscar at the 84th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
Besides the Oscar, the movie received the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Best Actor at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in Germany, becoming the first Iranian film to win the Golden Bear.
It also won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Feature Film.