Multimodal representation of social discourses in Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation: a social semiotic study

The directorial oeuvre of Asghar Farhadi thrives on incorporating a wide range of semiotic resources to feature fractured interpersonal relationships, socially indoctrinated gender roles, and class division(s) within the contemporary society of Iran. Farhadi utilizes the cinema as a medium to reflect on latent social contradictions and how personal identity is conditioned by patriarchal forces. A Separation (2011), his magnum opus, cultivates an ensemble of shades and layers of “separation” between dissenting social discourses. Taking Kress and Van Leeuwen’s [(2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge] social semiotic model as its theoretical framework, this paper attempts to delineate the registers through which social and cultural values are presented, enacted, and subverted throughout the film. A discursive and polysemic semiotic domain pointing to a broad canvas of social and cultural predicaments, the film is a microcosm of the developing society of Iran where “religious” beliefs and values come to clash with newly emerging cross-cultural “secular” perspectives.