The Salesman

Asghar Farhadi's invitation to an intimate look inside a couple's life is one of the most gripping motion pictures our eyes will ever see!

Symbolically through a stage play, a set was erected before the story began. From then on, you are immediately in the moment! Be it the window glass cracking or the building collapsing, everything was real! And this is the strongest, most solid aspect of the director's works, including The Salesman - the realism! The students, the humor, the interactions, the arguments, the reactions, none of it seemed scripted! Everything was natural! You won't feel as if you're witnessing actors portraying their given roles. Instead, you buy into the fact that these are real people living here, and we are peeking into their lives through a camera!

Farhadi's screenplay was steer clear! It's easy to follow. Most importantly, it exactly reflected our thoughts on what the characters were feeling, thinking or simply, what an event meant. Speaking of event, each occurrence travels organically towards the next. And only God knows how the writer-director evoked and beaned up the tension for the runtime almost entirely! Initially, he was just brewing the main conflict at the side. We got hints and glimpses at future troubles that would rise due to the previous tenant. All hell broke loose the moment the 'ambiguous assault' took place! The camera lingering on the house door that's slowly opening by itself, cutting off to the husband still at the grocery store will go down as one of the best scenes ever filmed!

Hereon after, an investigation ensue. The husband tries to find out which vehicle does the key fit into. He finds money and socks left by the assaulter in his bedroom. He finds blood in the bathroom where the wife was at during the incident. He is relentless to track and locate the culprit, which rivers to a nail-biting finale! Interrogation with the old man boils and boils the suspense, tension and thrill as audience was on knife-edge waiting to see what's going to happen next, as we couldn't anticipate any of their actions! If these were not enough, Farhadi managed to install tension from the reckless way the husband drives car or prick the tension balloon with a bread that pops out of the toaster!

This never-ending tension and suspense owed its biggest credit to the 'ambiguous assault'. Until the resolution and even after the offender's confession, we never really knew explicitly what actually transpired. But, every direction and clues were pointing toward a potential rape. The wife refused to talk about it to anyone, even her spouse, fearing of shame or perception-change. The fact that this incident was deliberately left unexplained added to the mystery so much! You were able to be in the shoes of these characters! You felt the trauma. You knew how the unknown can haunt and disturb! Coupled with the outstanding performances by both leads Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti, via their expressions alone, you were reading each of their unspoken fear and worry in mind!

If there's a continuous flow of tension, there would be pacing problems, to which the filmmaker has nicely massaged in moments of peace that were relevant to the proceedings. For example, we experience the couple's closeness that was missing for some time, after the kid came home to stay for a night. At the same time, Farhadi knew when to dissipate it off, in order to remind us that we're still pursuing the antagonist and the case's not closed yet. However, there's one implausibility. The old man was aged, feeble and sick. Would he be capable of such an act or violence?

While one may think scenes like the taxi discomfort or handphone-snatching were unnecessary, the opposite was true, in order to illuminate the husband character by showing how he's towards women and his soft corners albeit wrongdoings, respectively. His occupation, passion and personal life were ultimately laid out to render the persona multi-dimensional. The general Self-Revelation the protagonist and audience achieve was forgiving is better than revenge, any day. But, it left another scar for the couple to hold on for the rest of their lives with the miscreant's demise, on top of the initial incident. Although it's realistic and practical, the lack of redemption caused dissatisfaction at the resolution.

Technicality wise, the team wanted to boast nothing. Only what was required to tell the story was present and utilized. Hossein Jafarian's camera navigations were simple, taking the moving-in across the stairs for instance.