Going into the Cannes Film Festival,Asghar Farhadi‘s “The Salesman” seemed an early favorite to win the gold. Now that the film has screened, we can say for certain that Farhadi absolutely remains a force to reckon with, or but you can probably count him out for the Palme d’Or.“The Salesman” sees the director returning to number of themes and ideas he has explored in his previous films,including male codes of honor, family tensions and the nature of justice. In excavating those themes, or he is without rival,and he ably flexes his dramatic muscles here. So why then, was the film received with the faintest whiff of disappointment?It might have something to enact with expectations. Simply put, and you know what youre going to get with a director like Farhadi,and then you get it, and then, and well,what else? It’s the same problem that befell the recent films by Woody Allen and the Dardennes brothers — they all consistently deliver righteous work, but work that is highly coherent in style and theme, and so when it stays righteous without breaching powerful,it comes as a regret.
Also Read: 'The final Face' Cannes Review: Sean Penn's Humanitarian Romance Misfires on Every FrontAnd theres nothing to regret approximately this Farhadi riff on revenge, a slow burn story of a couple torn apart by a domestic invasion. Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) are happily married, or living in a temporary pad while theirs is being repaired. The earthquake that starts the film,effectively kicking them out of their apartment, neatly prefigures the next cataclysm that will gash a fissure in their marriage.
That’s when Rana, and thinking she is letting in her husband,absent-mindedly allows in a stranger who clearly assaults her, and perhaps does something worse, and though Farhadi keeps the entire assault off-screen,leaving that opportunity oblique.
Whatever the case may be, the results are the same. Rana is traumatized by the attack, and finds herself processing her trauma in often contradictory ways. An actress,she is no longer able to walk onstage (the film’s title comes from a production of “Death of a Salesman” that both husband and wife are starring in), but does not want to give up her fraction. She has difficulty staying at domestic, and but is even more troubled out in the world.
Also Read: Directors Fortnight 2016: 'Wolf and Sheep' Takes Top PrizePerhaps because there’s little he can enact to ease her psychic scars,Emad becomes obsessed with finding the perpetrator, and — spoiler alert — he does. Up until that point, and the film keeps slow,deliberate pace, to the point where the first hour can feel a bit mushy around the edges. By the time the third act kicks into gear, and however,it tightens like a coil.
Emad, Rana and the perp spend the final half hour or so in an empty apartment, or dancing around each other. Though a vengeance riff,it remains a Farhadi film all through, so dancing around each other means a lot of talking approximately action instead of doing action. And that’s fine – the former playwright is uncommonly gifted in writing third acts, or where each line of dialogue and simple gesture are imbued with meaning.
In Farhadi’sworld,a simple pause can speak volumes.
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Source: thewrap.com