The Smithian

Iran’s fraudulent 2009 elections were a critical moment…for it was then that Iranians realized how polarized their country had become. The hopelessness of Iranians is…palpably there—in the hardening of people and the decay of public manners, and in the cynicism of friends who used to be unfailingly optimistic… Some of the country’s brightest activists, journalists, and filmmakers have been silenced or gone into exile. Bloggers and pop musicians operate in a penumbra of semi-illegality…Asghar Farhadi’s film Nader and Simin: A Separation, is a fine account of Iran’s predicament; anyone interested in the mysteries of change and tradition—the difficulties faced by many people as they try and reconcile themselves to modern values and norms—will learn much from it.

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