Movies: A Separation and War Horse

Only 18 days left before the Oscars which means that there isn't much time to see all the Oscar nominated movies. However, I'm trying my best and hopefully I will see all the Best Picture nominees before the big night. 


Within a week I have seen these two movies, A Separation and War Horse, and I have something to say about them. Warning, some spoilers ahead.


A Separation
The plot of this Iranian movie is described the following way in imdb: "A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimers." If you ask me, that is not what the movie is about. 
Sure that's the setting in which the movie begins with and the reason for many problems. However, there is much more to it. I would describe the plot the following way: A married couple decides to divorce and as a consquence many horrible things happen and nobody is happy.
Honestly, I didn't understand what was so great about this movie that the rating in imdb was 95/100 by critics, and 8,6/10 by audience. Sure the screenplay was little surprising but I did know from the very start that woman had miscarried before Nader pushed her. If somebody can tell me why this movie deserves an Oscar, please tell me.


War Horse
Unlike before watching A Separation, I did not have high expectations before watching War Horse. I was a horse maniac as a young girl and I did watch many horse movies back then but as I grew up, I got bored with them. That's why I had rather low expectations of this movie. 
Fortunately, the movie exceeded my expectations. 
I loved it how the movie concentrated more on the horse, less on the owner. The horse, Joey, was sent to war where he ended up serving in both sides. The way Joey affected so many lives and made even enemies to drop their guns for a while was very touching. 
I was satisfied with the happy ending, too. It's important for me that the movie has a happy ending because otherwise it would haunt in my head for a long time. Sure I appreciate movies that have sad endings, too, like The Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan but as I said, they still haunt in my head.