I'm sure the play Death of a Salesman has something to do with the rest of this story, but aside from them both having a woman (in this film's story, off-screen) who has male 'customers', I still don't know yet. While The Salesman didn't hit the same emotional peak that A Separation did, this was drawn out in a gut-wrenching sort of way like that film does, where things are so realistic and yet at the same time there's always harsh and sorrowful pathos going on that we can be hooked into the furthering plight of these characters. It's in a way a crime film too, only it's a personal one.
Farhadi's storytelling is close to a blend at its most pure of a kind of neo-realism and a film-noir, to draw out the old-time film comparisons; it's about seemingly every-day people who try to lead and good and productive lives (the main couple here are actors and the man is also a schoolteacher, while the other characters that come in the second half of the story are working class as well), and one terrible damn incident brings the world crashing down.
As in A Separation the performances are particularly strong, but what I've noticed in these two films is how much Farhadi pays attention to the emotional lives of his women; Hosseini gets his dramatic moments, but he is mostly reacting to things, and tries to be tough and a MAN about things, while Alidoosti's Rana has to internalize this experience, and she is the one who really goes through a full, devastating arc through the film where, by near the end, she's become more of the grown-up and trying to see some reason and let sleeping dogs lie and such, though she's still scarred as well.
Perhaps, in thinking it now, the Salesman story is significant as well in that that story is about a man and woman being torn apart by the man being so stuck in his ways, unable to see any other way to go about how to live his life. Hosseini's character wants to do what's right (for a few reasons the cops cant be called after this attack on his love happens as the critical turning point), but his idea for revenge or payback is spurred further by his anger and frustration. Or, to put it more simply: what happens when a family is torn apart by the truth - this, by the way, becomes what may or may not end up being the climax of this film.
This is a heavy film, but rewarding because the actors are living so strongly in these moments, and we can empathize with them as well (which is the provocative part, as if Farhadi may be challenging us or himself or both to wonder) as a key character in the third act of the story, where it reaches its resolution - not to mention back where the story began, in an apartment that is unihabitable due to a man-made destruction - and because Farhadi is so vigorous in making practically every scene count. It's a painfully human tragedy (with maybe one or two minor laughs, almost like brief respites) that is able to be interesting, occasionally extremely and uncomfortably thrilling, and naturalistic at the same time, which is difficult to pull off. I may not rush to see The Salesman again, but I'm glad Farhadi continues to make films, and I'm more hopeful it'll win at the Oscars precisely because it is *not* political (except, of course, for how intensely it *is* a feminist story, simply in the sense that it's an Iranian film that feels deep compassion for its female co-protagonist).
Farhadi's storytelling is close to a blend at its most pure of a kind of neo-realism and a film-noir, to draw out the old-time film comparisons; it's about seemingly every-day people who try to lead and good and productive lives (the main couple here are actors and the man is also a schoolteacher, while the other characters that come in the second half of the story are working class as well), and one terrible damn incident brings the world crashing down.
As in A Separation the performances are particularly strong, but what I've noticed in these two films is how much Farhadi pays attention to the emotional lives of his women; Hosseini gets his dramatic moments, but he is mostly reacting to things, and tries to be tough and a MAN about things, while Alidoosti's Rana has to internalize this experience, and she is the one who really goes through a full, devastating arc through the film where, by near the end, she's become more of the grown-up and trying to see some reason and let sleeping dogs lie and such, though she's still scarred as well.
Perhaps, in thinking it now, the Salesman story is significant as well in that that story is about a man and woman being torn apart by the man being so stuck in his ways, unable to see any other way to go about how to live his life. Hosseini's character wants to do what's right (for a few reasons the cops cant be called after this attack on his love happens as the critical turning point), but his idea for revenge or payback is spurred further by his anger and frustration. Or, to put it more simply: what happens when a family is torn apart by the truth - this, by the way, becomes what may or may not end up being the climax of this film.
This is a heavy film, but rewarding because the actors are living so strongly in these moments, and we can empathize with them as well (which is the provocative part, as if Farhadi may be challenging us or himself or both to wonder) as a key character in the third act of the story, where it reaches its resolution - not to mention back where the story began, in an apartment that is unihabitable due to a man-made destruction - and because Farhadi is so vigorous in making practically every scene count. It's a painfully human tragedy (with maybe one or two minor laughs, almost like brief respites) that is able to be interesting, occasionally extremely and uncomfortably thrilling, and naturalistic at the same time, which is difficult to pull off. I may not rush to see The Salesman again, but I'm glad Farhadi continues to make films, and I'm more hopeful it'll win at the Oscars precisely because it is *not* political (except, of course, for how intensely it *is* a feminist story, simply in the sense that it's an Iranian film that feels deep compassion for its female co-protagonist).