Like "A Farewell", the story begins between a couple who are divorcing. After four years of separation, the husband Amed, who had returned to live in Tehran, rushed to Paris to go through formal divorce procedures with his wife Mary. Mary went to the airport to pick up the plane. The two made silent gestures and greetings through the glass. This was their last reunion. Starting from this metaphorical scene, in the next few days, many characters including the two of them were watching Struggling and hurting each other in seemingly clear but always misplaced communication.
Mary has been married several times and now lives with her two daughters, her current boyfriend Samir and Samir's son, and she is pregnant. And Samir's wife has been in a deep coma due to an attempted suicide, which makes Samir himself entangled in the yearning for a new life and the guilt of his wife. And Mary's relationship with her adolescent eldest daughter has become increasingly tense. The life that was originally in an extremely delicate balance was completely broken by the arrival of Ahmed.
This mode of invading a closed environment and triggering dramatic conflicts is also a useful narrative structure of Askha-Fahati. His previous feature films "About Yili" and "Fireworks Wednesday" are all like this. This arrangement is conducive to introducing an unfamiliar perspective of observation, and to find out the details that were originally concealed in the fragmented life and people trying to bury the details, and the waves under the seemingly peaceful life are becoming more and more turbulent.
It seems that Mary's life has been on the right track, divorcing Amed, and then marrying her boyfriend Samir. But things are far from that simple. The reason for Samir’s wife’s suicide has always been a mystery. After Ahmed’s questioning, the eldest daughter told the truth. Because she didn’t like Samir, she forwarded all the love letters between him and his mother. Give it to Samir's wife. This has been pressing on her heart. But after a while, Samir discovered that her wife hadn't seen those emails. It was just a mischievous prank by an employee of his laundry shop.
Every character in "The Past" is looking for the truth of life and the way he thinks is right. Ahmed came to France to have a happy ending. What Samir longed for was a new family. Mary hopes to get rid of the troubles of the previous failed marriages. The eldest daughter tried to find a path to atonement. They rushed hard on the way to the destination they set, but when they met, they realized that everything became chaotic. But this seems to be what the director Askha-Fahati meant to express. The truth of life and the way to the right are too complicated to be said. What's more, for life itself, where is the true truth and the so-called correct way? Life itself is a huge riddle. The director himself once said, "You will find the "truth" in a certain place in time and space, but only from your perspective. Only after experiencing a certain part of it, you can deeply feel every level of love, getting along, and relationships. After that, you can truly appreciate its meaning. It is by no means a single one. To capture every detail of it is the most interesting thing I find.” Asha-Fahati arranged several roles for the film many times. The silent but meaningful shots, the intersecting and dodging eyes are full of countless words and deep helplessness. This kind of prosaic and internally explosive theme is actually extremely difficult to grasp. One step backward will make the whole movie extremely dull, and one step forward will become a typical family run-of-the-road drama on Chinese TV screens. But Askha-Fahati seemed familiar.
At this year's Cannes Film Festival, Askha-Fahati received unimaginable support. The number of reporters present at the media meeting of The Past surpassed that of the famous French director Ou Jong. Although this new film failed to reach "A Farewell" in terms of format, it still received a lot of praise. Just like the director himself said, "My film is about interpersonal relationships, which is a worldwide topic." To a certain extent, the complex entanglements between people span races, countries, religions, and cultures. It will impress everyone.
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