Le passé (The Past)2013
Le passé (The Past) (2013)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Beautifully written, sensitively directed, and powerfully acted, The Past serves as another compelling testament to Asghar Farhadi's gift for finely layered drama.
Le passé (The Past) Photos
Movie Info
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Cast
as Marie
as Samir
as Ahmad
as Lucie
as Fouad
as Lea
as Naima
as Shahryar
as Valeria
News & Interviews for Le passé (The Past)
Critic Reviews for Le passé (The Past)
All Critics (155) | Top Critics (55) | Fresh (143) | Rotten (12)
No one wins in this ambiguous, accomplished film, which ends by burdening the audience with a secret that none of the characters will ever know.
The Past never forgets its domestic focus, and [Asghar] Farhadi's keen eye for subtle emotional shifts keeps the story afloat.
While Farhadi's eye for detail is as unsparing as ever, his style this time around has begun to look formulaic.
Farhadi finds his characters trapped, not by the constraints of an overbearing authority but by the spectre of the past.
With its sympathies forever shifting among its characters, the film asks whether the truth is ever even objectively knowable, let alone whether honesty is always the best policy.
This is an exquisitely made film which probes away at the rawest, most intimate emotions of its characters with a delicacy and insight reminiscent of Krzysztof Kieslowski in his prime.
Audience Reviews for Le passé (The Past)
A movie with all the trappings of a insightful and intricate drama - the actors display all the emotions of rage, anger, sadness and confusion that failed relationships bring. Yet ultimately the film fails to be as meaningful of a character study as it thinks it is. "Le Passé" (The Past) is brave enough to imply lots of things about humans but doesn't go as far to make you believe them. Once the central secret is revealed the film decides to become a mystery vs a human drama and then the proceedings just get more unbelievable as every twist gets revealed. The performances are top-notch, though I wish Tahar Rahim was more commanding. Rahim, so revelatory in "A Prophet", fails to really connect with the character cohesively so it's hard to imagine why Berenice Bejo is with him. Her daughter implies a reason at one point but the film does nothing to explore that truth other than continue to imply it. "The Past" is worth watching for several scenes that are powerful. The scenes with young son Fouad are strong - and he becomes one of the more interesting characters in the film. Ali Mosaffa is great as the soon-to-be ex-husband but you never quite know what drove the relationship to fall apart and the first half of the film where you follow him and how he causes the unravelling of this family is more interesting than the second half of the film.
Super Reviewer
Farhadi proves again that he is one of the greatest storytellers nowadays to shape nuanced, three-dimensional characters, making it impossible for us to take sides or judge any of them - and his wonderful last scene, filmed in one long take, is of extraordinary sensibility.
Super Reviewer
Samir: When two people see each other after 4 years and still fight together, it shows that there is something unsolved between them. One of the best things about The Past, writer/director Asghar Farhadi's follow up film to 2011's Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, A Separation, is that it makes me want to see all of Farhadi's previous films. Once again working with a fairly straight-forward, reality-based premise as the subject for a drama, Farhadi is certainly proving to be one of the best voices in film, when it comes to examining familial relationships. What makes this impressive is how gripping I have found his films to be, despite being incredibly limited as far as any sort of flashiness is concerned. With The Past, there are no broad characters, the film has almost no music or score whatsoever, and the film's stakes are entirely personal to the specific people involved. Still, The Past was another standout from 2013, as it is so great at being the film it is trying to be. read the whole review at thecodeiszeek.com
Super Reviewer
Le passé (The Past) Quotes
| Samir: | Who's void am I filling in your life? |
| Ahmad: | That's what depression's like. Small things can set you off. |
| Naima: | You can't say whatever you want and then apologize. |