By 
By Roger Costa
A woman is preparing her bath while removing the make-up as she just finished rehearsals of an adapatation of Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman”. She is alone in the apartment, and expecting her husband bringing some requests for dinner. The bell rings, she gently interrupts her personal practices, moves to the intercom giving permission in, opens the door, and goes back to the bathroom. The camera remains silently observing the door from the interior, as it opens slowly. Cut. Her husband is still shopping the groceries. As he returns home, he follows the steps of blood left on the way. Panic strikes, as uncertainty, confusion and shock twists the lives of the young artistic couple, leaving them with a sense of lost.
The detailed crafting of space, and surroundings, the insistence in pushing elements and its characters to the edge, to the limit of their moral virtues is superbly provided by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, an aesthetic he well knows how to explore, which prevails throughout his films which include the masterpieces “About Elly” and Oscar winner “A Separation” . Astonished, the husband, Emad (fiercely played by Shahab Hosseini) finds no console until he figures out what happened, why his wife Rana (a phenomenal Taraneh Alidoosti) has been mysteriously and brutally attacked. He transmits the feelings of despair as he arrives at the hospital and finds his wife’s face covered by blood, unconscious, lacking understanding. Farhadi creates an edge-of-your-seat mystery crime situation, focusing on the husband’s uneasiness and the wife’s inescapable transformation into fear, grabbing the audience with an intriguing puzzle of thoughtful observations on the reactions and consequences of their decisions.
The husband, who is a devoted teacher and actor, playing the title role in the play’s adaptation within the film, becomes obsessed to learn the truth, and starts an investigation of his own, when he learns that the attacker had left his car keys and cell phone behind. A man of incredible value and consideration for others, constantly making remarks and justifying people’s actions, once explaining to a student the reasons why a woman had mistaken him for an offender while in a taxi ride, he is now disturbed by a moral dilemma as revenge, sacrifice, and humiliation become motivations on his quest for justice.
The aspect of turmoil and disturbance predominates in the film since its opening sequence, where the protagonists are being forced to evacuate their building as it is collapsing. With the same intensity, Farhadi follows them through their routines, narrating their transition to a new place, his interactions in school, their involvement with the arts, and their attempts to organize the new place and return the old tenant’s things packed in boxes. When the attack strikes, they are completely taken by fear, bringing them even more troubles than the deliverance from the building’s collapse. The objects found along the way become important pieces, and even characters, interconnecting the causes and how it really happened. Winner of the Cannes awards for Best Screenplay and Best Actor (totally deserved) , and Iran’s submission for the upcoming Oscars, THE SALESMAN confirms Farhadi as a grand master of modern suspense, an emotionally-charged investigative thriller, as well as a brilliant account on human values and integrity being challenged by injustice and violence.
THE SALESMAN (A Cohen Media Group Release. Opens Friday, January 27th at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and Angelika Film Center in NYC, and at the Laemmle Royal in LA followed by national release)
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