Watched Manchester by the Sea (2016) yesterday and couldn't help but notice that it share a lot of the same narrative...

Watched Manchester by the Sea (2016) yesterday and couldn't help but notice that it share a lot of the same narrative elements and general themes with films by the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi: A Seperation (2011) and Le Passe (2013)... coincidence, or did Kenneth Lonergan and Casey Affleck think they just could rip off foreign director without American audiences ever noticing? I can elaborate if you guys want me to, but I'm hoping someone else noticed. Really scummy.

>Cultural appropriation meme

You have to go back

I've just seen A Separation, and I don't see what you're talking about m8

This isn't an argument about cultural appropriation. I'm just saying this movie doesn't deserve so much hype, especially considering they blatantly ripped off some pretty successful foreign films and simply figured Americans would be too retarded to notice. You seem fragile.

It's more so with Le Passé, but the protagonists in a separation and in Manchester are both sadboy men struggling with crazy women in a fiasco divorce who have been falsely accused of a heinous crime.

In both directors' movies the sad boy protagonist who just wants to get out of it all has to also deal with the sad teenagers who are suffering all the collateral damage and act out in certain ways

Thematically, both directors address issues of repressed guilt, social outcasting, divorce, suicide, and the idea of trying to reconcile our pasts when the damage is still visible. And in many ways, Longeram addresses these issues using more or less the same plot devices as Farhadi, I.e. Sad boy lives on his own but has to return to city where all his bad memories occurred because of family drama

I don't think that's what Manchester by the sea was about, not even remotely. There's no emphasis on Patrick's mother and her alcoholism, nor there is on how Lee is seen for what happened. It's not about Lee's struggle with Patrick's suffering, but more about how they deal with the death of his father/brother in the midst of their already complicated live. Anyway that's how I've seen it.

Assgar Farhadi is fucking shit tier socio realism director

This plot device is very very common, it's even used in the Bible in the parable of the prodigal son.

I was just drawing comparisons between Manchester and A Seperation, but as I said, the more obvious similarities are between Manchester and Le Passe, in which a man is just trying to finalize his divorce amidst some other really fucked shit, i.e. Suicide of the other dude's wife because of an affair. I'm not saying the movies are carbon copies of each other, but I'm more than certain Longeram used the films as starting points for his own Americanized version.

Sure, but when only 1 in 100 films that make it to the big screen these days don't involve sensational cgi nonsense, it's hard to say that these films stand uniquely apart.

Like, why would both directors use literally the exact same plot device? Because it makes a good movie, and Longeram wasn't creative enough to write his own narrative.

Maybe, I've yet to see Le Passé so my opinion may change afterward. I don't know were you're from but in my country Le Passé and A Separation were both widely released, maybe not as much as the lastest blockbuster but not very hard to see if you want to.
As for all the racket about Manchester by the sea, I do think it was too much, even if i did appreciate the movie, I don't think it's that fantastic.

>Longeram wasn't creative enough
please gas yourself for implying hack like assgard was creative in its use.

What an astute critique!

They weren't widely release in the US, which is what's heightening my suspicions, and exacerbating my frustration.

You imply that Lonergan ripped it off from that hack when its one of the most common themes and devices in history of narrative arts.

You are so fucking plebeian it actually makes me mad that you make this stupid connection.

btw. his screenplays are nothing like Assguard's

Did you watch the fucking movies?

Did you? Man Assgard totally ripped off Joe Blow's life when he made the drama about divorce! And Jane Doe's too!

Go more into details about this OP.

I'm curious