User reviews

After having just moved into their new home Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti), a couple of fellow actors find themselves in a difficult home life situation after a violation of their home. S they go through the performances at the local theater of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' their relationship takes a left turn from which it might not ever go back.

I tried to keep the synopsis as vague as possible so not to spoil the film, since, as in most of Farhadi's films, the inciting incident comes in later in the film and the drama ultimately does not develop until the third act, something that this director likes to do and at which he excels, always giving priority to the space in which characters develop and live their everyday lives.

And those are exactly the reasons why "The Salesman" is a fantastically subtle and morally complex revenge tale masked as a home drama, which has some of the best work by actors I have seen in 2016, even though this might be too slightly of a familiar territory from Farhadi.

It is no coincidence that Shahab Hosseini won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival, if there is one reason why this film succeeds it is him. This performance is raw and authentic in its own unique way, he manages to guide us through every one of the stages of degradation his character goes through and he manages to do so without us noticing. On a surface level the character arch he goes through would be hard to believe, there are some changes that wouldn't appear natural when spelled out. Yet, Hosseini manages to sell us on this person and all of the turbulence he has to go through, he manages to enhance little moments that I can't imagine working on paper. He fits right into the world that Farhadi builds and comes out giving a powerhouse of a performance that guides the audience through the whole narrative.

Certainly, Farhadi deserves to share some of the credit for the performance too, for many reasons. Firstly, just as in all of his film, the performances across the board are just flawless, he directs actors to perfection and he doesn't even give you a chance to realize this. The way in which he uniquely manages to capture everyday life is profoundly stunning. From the camera-work to every detail of the blocking of actors right down to every word they say, the fabric of ordinariness he succeeds in putting on screen is flawless. I have no idea if this is all meticulously thought out or if it is left to brilliant improvisation and I don't want to know, what is clear to me is that as a director his methods work excellently and the results he manages to produce on screen are remarkable.

Then, when it comes to building the drama, Farhadi is just as masterful. The evolution of it is natural and doesn't ever feel forced upon the characters, the parallels traced with theater might be a little too on the nose, but they are stunningly relevant and used to an incredible cinematic effect. He manages to build and build the drama and make it culminate in a riveting finale where all of the themes and the moral questions the film asks flow out naturally from it and leave you hanging at just the right moment. He also manages to build a complex web of visual cues and use them effectively to complement the characters and the story, once again here the visual parallels with the theater are a joy to see unfold.

It has to be said that this is very familiar territory for Farhadi, the contrast of personal justice versus institutionalized justice is very relevant is his past film "A Separation" and so is the outlook on revenge, the degrading and the toll it takes on the individual and the destructive results of it. Sometimes it even feels like he is retracing his steps and for someone who has seen his film this might result in a slightly predictable outcome, even though the self contained drama in the film never looses its relevance to the characters, ultimately resulting in a constantly fascinating watch that challenges the viewer and defies traditional cinematic beats and expectations

This is a true masterpiece, one of the best films of the year. Even though Farhadi's 'A Separation' is even better, this is a great display of storytelling and psychological understanding of the director. There are three elements that ought to be highlighted. 1) Without gimmicks and hyperboles it shows how a common man, with his natural strengths and flaws, gets his own moral code defied by the violence that exists in all societies but that in this case, touched his family. 2) The visual language. Again, it's subtle and straightforward, but its always at the right distance of the characters. 3) The counterpointing of Miller's play is marvelous! What happens to them in real life always affects the development of the play and the tensions backstage have a richness that takes the audience to a new level. A must-watch!!!

Gradually (highly recommended to read these two plays before watching this movie 1.Cow by Gholam Hossein Saedi and 2.Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller) The salesman is really breathtaking and it has all the familiar factor of Farhadi's movies with a big difference that there is not any sign of those open ends anymore and you associate with the main character of movie more than any time. The story is about a young couple (Emad and Rana) who are performing at Arthur Miller's play Death of a salesman. They have to move to another apartment because their apartment is going to collapse. This moving cause a serious issue in their life because of the old tenant. In the beginning of the film when Emad_ with brilliant performance by Shahab Hosseini_ and his students was reading Saedi's play Cow, one of his student asked him "Sir,How does a man become cow?" Emad answered: "gradually". This question and Emad's answer are the main theme of this movie. Farhadi has used some part of the play Death of a Salesman in his movie masterfully and he has chosen Emad for the Willy's role in order to show and emphasize how Emad gradually got far away from his family or even his wife just like willy. The last twenty minutes of film are really breathtaking and the spectators associate with Emad more than anytime and I think they regularly ask themselves "if I were him, what would I do?" The salesman is a story about revenge or with accurate express is a story about the motivation of revenge. This story like another Fahadi's movies occurs in a family and effects family members. After A separation and now with the salesman Farhadi can be considered as a great master in directing suspenseful family drama like Hitchcock.

Masterfully shot in Teheran, the film follows the ill fortunes of a theatrical married couple who, while rehearsing Miller's play Death of a Salesman, find themselves having to abandon their crumbling apartment and to seek alternative accommodation. The film is openly an allegory about social, urban and marital decay. But way beyond it, it is about the costs of masculine pride. By far more than a very good 'Iranian film', this is a superb statement about the unbearable consequences of trying to live up to codes of honour that centre on the female body. In my opinion, actress Taraneh Alidoosti is the hero of the film, both in her performance and in the role she occupies in the script. In contrast to appearances, she is the mover of everything that takes place in this fantastic film. A cinematic poem and a masterpiece in unfolding the twists of human psychology.

I loved how this movie had some women characters that shows the exact situation of Iranian women. The old lady: "Oh...thank god you are alive.Thank you for saving him.He is my everything.I can't live without him."These are the words of an old lady in a 35 year-old marriage toward his husband which has been cheating on her for 3 years!How dumb is she!? It's the story of many women in Iran which because of their situation should obey their husbands and love them blindly. Raana: She has been raped but she doesn't have the courage to sue also she is so embarrassed that this may become a discredit to her. The prostitute: Imagine A mother with a young daughter what should she do for a living?Nothing in a society specified for Men but to sell her body to those Men! And finally the woman in the taxi: This woman knows the situation of all the women above. she is now a women who had lost her trust to all men.Either something happened to her or to her friends she now sees men all like together.She's so paranoid that she doesn't see that Emad is doing nothing.

-- spoilers alert --

There are many other scenes i loved about the film for example when one of the student asked "how does a man become a cow?"and Emad answered "gradually" and It was actually proved during the film when an old man doesn't find it shameful to touch someone's wife while a kid find it shameful to go to bathroom with his mother's friend!!So again a man gradually becomes a cow!! -- spoilers end --

The films by Farhadi I've seen so far gave me frustration because of the lack of open and clear communication. I don't know if this is deliberate and the director is trying to tell us something about Iranian society but it reminds me cheesy Turkish soap operas where the enigma will be resolved instantly if people talked to each other patiently rather than raging or looking away. As a Turkish person who's never been to Iran yet, I find Iranian films fascinating even for the similar looks, customs, objects and life style we seem to share. But unfortunately I don't find it realistic that people don't talk or have a proper fight with each other although living/working together. Maybe I'm too naive though, I don't know...

I love Iranian movies and the Separation is one of my favorites. Somehow with the Salesman it did not work out. The script is original but the story develops so slowly and drowns out. You do not feel the real drama and the true massage behind it. The director probably wanted to repeat his success using the same means as in the Separation but it lacks originality, something thrilling and insightful acting.

Asghar Farhadi is an amazing director. His 4 films are nominated for Oscar in a row. Amonth them, "A Separation" won the first Oscar and Golden globe to an Iranian movie. His direction style and making always impress me.

"The Salesman" is the story of a couple who move to a new apartment, unaware that it was occupied by a prostitute before them. A customer of the old tenant makes a visit to the apartment that makes the couples life upside down.

The husband is searching for the visitor for a revenge, but ends up in a sweet revenge story, or so called.

I was so impressed by the movie that I have no words to explain or describe it. Asghar Farhadi's free and candid type of visuals makes the movie more lively. Close ups make the drama more intense.

The movie is such an emotional drama that you don't want to miss.

A must watch. Highly recommended.

#KiduMovie

Without it yet being an actual problem, watching this felt like Farhadi has become a bit too self-aware, dangerously close to falling into the black hole of his own creativity. A tad too stylized, a lashing too structured, The Salesman is still a profoundly personal movie, anthropocentric to almost a fault without ever crossing that line; a fine balance the filmmaker has proved to be masterful at keeping.

The story is simple, held elegantly against the backdrop of Miller's Death of a Salesman; a play in which our heroes are portraying the main characters as a recreational activity. The protagonists' plight is being juxtaposed with that of Willy's and Linda's, elevating the sudden darkness befalling their happiness to an allegory pertaining the small; those innocuous details that can either support or break a union in the aftermath of a domestic crisis.

Much like Willy's burden of mediocrity, Emad is being defined by his own perceived inability to successfully tend to his wife, Rana, in the aftershock of an attack that quickly adorns their skin with wrinkles of instability. Cracks appear, on their walls of their home, the build of their marriage, the very foundation of his mental equilibrium and in the process of his wife's healing, the tables are slowly being turned.

Rana lifts her chin in subtle pride as she dusts the burden of self-pity off her bruised shoulders and ventures to reestablish herself in a state of weightless normalcy. All the while, Emad seems to be caving under the pressure of his own contradicting duality -- a man who desperately seeks to regain control of a suddenly derailed life, a husband needing to protect, shield and amend in vengeful anger while, simultaneously, mending in kindness, fear, and worry. Two people journeying through life side by side are now being torn to opposite poles in a way subepidermal enough to have you fearing for their relationship without even realizing at what point exactly you reached that emotional status.

Farhadi's signature move, it would seem.

My personal gripe. The Salesman cuts deep without pushing -- a beautiful movie featuring some stellar acting by almost everyone involved, no argument there. However, and much to my disappointment, I found it falling short during the third act.

Emad's inner turmoil leads to many spasmodic, irrational reactions from the beginning of the tale but during the last part of the film, the character becomes unrealistic, like the final scene had been already filmed and Farhadi needed to mold something out of nothing to just get us there.

Underwhelming finish aside, the overall outcome is still worth of tremendous praise, even if, for some of you who might end up sharing my views, it finishes not in thunderous applause but a thoughtful sigh of contentment.

I am struck at the complexity of this film, and the reflective nature of its narrative structure. Action or events as a device to look at our natures, choices, motives, drives and dreams. And let's not stop there. How about actors acting theater scenes, and throw in a play within a play to boot, for good measure.

I know I sound somewhat critical above, and under less skilled hands, such criticism would be warranted. But not here. THE SALESMAN is compelling from beginning to end. And using Arthur Miller's iconic play, THE DEATH OF A SALESMAN, works so well to comment on these character's dreams, failings, nobility and humanity.

A dream -- or rather dreams -- shattered by a single, accidental, innocent incident. At the end of the journey, of our own Odyssey, whether we arise as a hero or a victim depends on our choices, our attitudes, our sheer willfulness for goodness or our tendency for self-destruction. To me, this movie raised these issues, and more. I loved it. Compelling through and through, and from a most-gifted, cinematically articulate director.

Scoring the different elements of the film objectively, 1 to 4:

Script/Story: 4, loved it. And all this set against a backdrop of a crackling, fall building; a house of cards, if you will.

Cinematography/Visual Effects: 3.5. Well shot. Close shots heightened the tension.

Editing: 3.5. Well edited; kept the pacing of a natural thriller, but lacked the cheesiness of one.

Sound Effects: 3, competent sound mixing

Musical Score: 3; frankly do not recall any musical score underscoring the film. This is sad as I should have noticed. Was there one?

Performances: 4, extremely strong performances. Great ensemble work, and standout work by the two leads, and the old man, too. I was particularly touched by the scene between the two men when the lead told the old man to take off his shoes. This scene was so effectively shot. Slow pacing of the camera capturing every quiver of both performances. Wow.

Production Design: Sets, Locations, Costumes, etc.: 2.5; my complaint here deals with the shots from the theater itself where DEATH OF A SALESMAN was being performed. Needed something more here.

Would you recommend this movie to a friend? Absolutely; a fine work of cinema. And extremely provocative. Well written; well shot; well delivered. Most highly recommended. Strong Oscar contender for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Salesman is Asghar Farhadi's 7th Feature film and the 4th in which he reunites with Taraneh Alidoosti.

The film centers around a married couple who are in middle of preparation for their adaptation of Death of a Salesman for stage. The film begins with this couple having to evacuate their apartment due to excavations happening next door. They're forced to look for a new apartment and they managed to do so through their friend played by Babak Karimi...and that's all you need to know about the plot because I feel like giving away more would diminish what this film is trying to achieve.

I feel like The Salesman follows a similar formula to About Elly . It's expertly written and it managed to hook me from the very first scene all the way to the last. The viewer is not presented with the central issue of the film from the get-go (unlike a Separation), but rather the film follows normal day-to-day life of the characters and that creates a sense of anticipation in the viewer. That feeling of anticipation in About Elly made it so special for me and Farhadi follows the same formula here again.

I was never a huge fan of A Separation and I've always considered the massively underrated About Elly as Farhadi's best film , but If you've seen and enjoyed either of those films, then The Salesman is for you.

This is probably the most mature and well crafted Film from Farhadi so far. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Oh and It's probably worth noting that the film received a standing ovation at my theater.

The name of the film "Salesman" have 2 coincident meanings at the same word: one of the meaning is pertaining to the first role actor in theater who his occupation have to sales somethings in term of managing his life poorly and another meaning is affiliated with a woman (ex- tenant of the apartment) who sales her body in an inappropriate way for making money intentionally. In addition, aforementioned movie show us that taking revenge is not really easy when we imagine ourselves in that situation because if you are there instead of guilty person, maybe you act worse than him. What's more, Audience during watching these Sequences, face with a dilemma between forgiveness or revenge which this atmosphere is entirely fantastic and make us satisfied after watching this terrific film.

Unraveling with the charged tension of an intense thriller and concluding with a gut-wrenching, soul-shattering & emotionally devastating final act, The Salesman is a tour-de-force of top-tier storytelling & top-notch acting that presents the master storyteller in sublime form and makes for an emotionally absorbing domestic tragedy that's gripping & haunting in more ways than one. One of the best all-round films of its year, this Oscar-winning Persian treasure is right up there with Asghar Farhadi's finest directorial efforts.

Culturally-informative tale about honour and justice and the different perspectives at navigating a tricky and shameful situation, from each person's perspective.

This would have been great... If it wasn't 2 hrs long. It's fairly heavy and emotionally-moving in *some* places, but for me, not enough to justify a 2hr screentime. I would argue the story could have been as effective with 30+ minutes less footage.

And it wasn't mindblowingly emotional for me, it was more interesting as a look into understanding a different culture, rather than each individual character.

The performances were natural and on point.

Emad and Rana are a middle class couple living in an apartment building in Iran, which, for some unexplained reason, is being demolished without evacuating the tenants first. I guess the building codes in the Middle East are not as strict as here in America. The brooding husband and wife are forced to move to another place which had a mysterious previous occupant. Apparently, the woman who lived there was a prostitute with an extensive clientele. Emad is on his way home to the new domicile when his wife suffers a vicious, violent attack. Apparently, she has been mistaken for the last tenant. The couple are an actor and actress who are performing the very American play by Arthur Miller, "Death of a Salesman." They are working at a small theater which, I guess, is the Iranian equivalent to off Broadway here in New York. Emad also works as a school teacher to pay their living expenses. The film moves back and forth between the stage play and Emad's obsession with catching his wife's attacker. This is a thoroughly depressing journey, and although the lead actors are excellent, I was totally drained emotionally by the not so happy ending. The Salesman is nominated for best Foreign film at the Oscar's, but personally I would pick "A Man Called Ove" as a better choice.

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).