Asghar Farhadi's "The Salesman" (2016) attracted more attention after winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The biggest highlight of the film is the rehearsal of Arthur Miller's " Death of a Salesman" by the hero and heroine, which vividly interprets the couple's different attitudes and practices after experiencing unbearable events . It not only allows people to see the fact that Iranian society is in a transition between the old and the new, but also witnesses the general state of human nature after the change.
The director said that the current Iranian society is very similar to New York in the 1940s . Willie, the sixtieth salesman in "Death of a Salesman," spent his entire life selling the "American Dream", but had to end up committing suicide in order for his beloved wife Linda and her family to get that pitiful insurance payout. The shattering of the American dream is, in fact, the shattering of human nature.
I think someone must ask why the film is forced into it when it seems that it has nothing to do with " Death of a Salesman". In fact, the ingenuity of the film is also here. When an irrelevant thing is brought together, it just forms a contrast and contrast, and then has an extraordinary effect. As a literature teacher, Amad (Shahab Hussain), who loves drama, participated in the rehearsal of "Death of a Salesman" with his wife Lana (Taranya Alidosti ). It also stars Willie and Linda.
Originally, the little things that appeared in the rehearsal were in small roles, such as the prostitute played by Samra. She got angry and quit halfway because of the playful ridicule of her colleagues . Samra brings her youngest son, Sadra, to the theater every day. She is rehearsing , and his son is playing alone in the theater. The small disturbance caused by the performance and rehearsal of "Death of a Salesman" is quietly being staged in parallel. This kind of careful setting in the film is a bit risky, because too much or too little will affect the weight of the main plot of the film. Fortunately, the director is an expert in constructing drama films, and there is no sense of isolation, and it is not annoying.
The film starts off into a tense and suspenseful mode, reminding me of the Russian film Fool in a Dangerous Building (2015), but fortunately it doesn't go in that kind of monolithic direction. The apartment where Amade, the protagonist of the film lives , is about to collapse because of the high-rise building next to it . He then moved to an apartment with his wife, Lana, under the care of his theater colleague Bobak . They found that a room in the apartment still had belongings from the former tenant, who was a sex worker .
A few days after we moved in, Lana was in the shower when she heard the doorbell and thought her husband was coming back, so she opened the door and went to take a bath by herself. Unexpectedly , when Amade came back, she saw blood all over the floor. , his wife was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment, but fortunately no serious injury. When the wife returned home, she was naturally immersed in a huge shadow of panic. The husband asked her if she had been sexually assaulted. She said no, but she felt faint when someone came in.
However, after the quasi "obscene" incident, the changes in the hearts of the husband and wife were obvious. The wife is afraid of being alone in the house, she prefers to stand on the balcony outside the house. The husband insisted on searching to find out the real murderer. He wanted to take her to the police station with him, but the wife was unwilling. She didn't want to talk to the police about it, she just wanted to forget it as soon as possible. But Amad would not rest on his laurels. He even took his anger at his wife into teaching and rehearsal.
Come to think of it, Amad looked very peaceful and humble before the event. One time he was with student Ahmed when a woman who was sitting with him asked the taxi driver to stop and she asked to sit in the front. When the student Ahmed brought up the incident, Ahmad, the teacher, said it was not an insult, perhaps the lady had suffered similar grievances before. But after the unfortunate incident with his wife, his mentality changed completely. He was always critical of students and even confiscated students' mobile phones. The students looked at him more and more strangely.
He even accused his enthusiastic colleague Bobak, and privately added lines to insult him in the drama, which caused Bobak to say to him afterwards, if you treat me like this again, I can't forgive you. But Emard blamed Beau Barker for explaining at the time why the house didn't let a sex worker live in the room , and it made him sick to think that the bed had hosted so many men . But Bobak felt that the people and things in the past had nothing to do with you , because you thought too much.
After the rehearsal that day, Lana took Samra's youngest son, Sadra, home and made him pasta. During the meal, Amade said where did you get the money to buy the noodles, she said the money in the cupboard. He said it wasn't my money, it was left by the man, and we didn't eat it. This makes Lana so sad. Emad had sworn to let us forget about it before, but the ghosts lingered and lingered.
Finally, through the relationship of his students, he found the owner of the abandoned minivan , Majid, a boy from a bakery. In the name of pulling goods , Amade invited him to help deliver the goods. Amadeus chose his old house that was about to collapse. But it was Majid's father-in-law who went that day. When Amad raised this matter solemnly, the old man said that he had a heart attack, and asked me to go back and ask Majid, this child should not be able to do things, what a good child he is, and will follow me. Their daughter is getting married and they are shopping for wedding gifts.
But Amad felt the strangeness in the old man's eyes, so he asked him to take off his shoes. Of course the old man refused, but under Amad's strong coercion, the old man took off his shoes and socks. Sure enough, the old man's right foot was bandaged. When the truth came out, the old man had to tell the truth, saying that the woman who lived in the past let him go there, but he was not free. He didn't know it was a woman who was bathing, and he didn't do anything. Hearing the screams, he was scared and ran away, and he didn't know how his feet were scratched.
The old man's narration obviously made Amad extremely dissatisfied. He angrily pushed him into the closet and locked it. When he finished the play, he hurried back. Lana sensed his strangeness and followed. When Amadera opened the cabinet, the dying old man fell, which made Lana worried . She persuaded Amade to let him go home and stop fussing, but Amade was unwilling. During the clamor, the old man suffered a heart attack. They found the medicine , and the old man was relieved.
What the old man was most afraid of was Amad's claim that he wanted his family to come and talk about it . But this time his family really came over, and the fat wife went upstairs panting and said, old man, stand up, you are everything to me. The daughter came up first with her boyfriend Majid, hugged her father, and was overjoyed to see his father being rescued, but Amade was unwilling to let him go. money and slapped him.
As soon as the stunned old man came out, his taste changed. The family felt strange and quickly carried him down, but the old man passed out on the stairs . When the ambulance arrives, the old man may be out of breath. Lana said before that if you don't let him (the old man) go, we can't get through . The matter got to this point, Amad strangled to death for the sake of his so-called man's dignity, but in the end he let his wife stay away from him . Because the wife just wants to forget about it early, let alone any evil deeds and consequences caused by it.
Obviously, her husband Amad's revenge is beyond her tolerance, which is about conscience, morality and law, none of which makes a beautiful wife unbearable. To retain dignity or to forget it as soon as possible is also a topic involving dignity. Aimad's maintenance of dignity is more caused by a man's selfishness, and more respect should be based on love and compassion. There is no doubt that Lana's choice is correct.
From a legal point of view, the old man was at best a quasi-obscene, and did not cause substantial harm to her. Of course, this also touched the bottom line of law and morality. It's just that Lana chose forgiveness, which is the lesser of two evils.
The film has its own unique perspective on the multiple interpretations of human nature. The old man seeks prostitutes for excitement, but it does not affect his love for his family. It can be seen from his fear that Amadeus will call his family. It can be said that he regrets everything. The family's love for the old man is even more profound, but these failed to arouse Amade's sympathy. Instead, he was blinded by his own hatred , which led to an irreversible tragedy. After Amad gave up seeking legal avenues to solve the problem, he was destined to never forgive, and his vow to forget was just a lip service. This shows that , in a society like Iran, even seemingly decent intellectuals are ultimately not exempt from "vulgarity".
The film piles up various elements of Iran's reality, the great construction at the material level, the trend of intelligence, and the liberation of the personality at the spiritual level, but without exception, they are all swayed and controlled by the forces of traditional habits, and the mark of the patriarchal society is once again obtained. Deepening and clear proof . Life is a web, like the life of a cobweb, once the wind blows and grass moves, it is always difficult for people to move and breathe.
In addition, the film is also very vivid about the relationship between neighbors and colleagues and students , such as neighbors' talkativeness, colleagues' caring eyes and inquiries, and students' play and silence, which are as vivid as sketches . This is the master strokes, see the real kung fu. The play within the play goes hand in hand with the plot of the movie, which is just right and can be described as exquisite . In this way, it is normal to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It is undoubtedly a work that is extremely brilliant in terms of comprehensive indicators.
In other words, if "Minefield", "A Man Named Ove Decided to Die" and "Tony Erdman Staff" is slightly better. Of course, there are political considerations, but it is impossible for any film or any literary and artistic work to bypass or be completely insulated from politics . In other words, art itself contains political elements. Reality is human nature, and it all contains political factors, so to say that political influence on the film is not a simple praise or criticism, nor will it weaken the artistry of the work itself.
Simply put, politics in art is like the fact that a person is placed in the real world, let alone a work. This reminds me of "Triumph of the Will" (1935) directed by female director Lenny Riefenstahl , even in Germany under the fascist madness, we still see the artistry of the film itself, and it has been such a kind since then. A great example of documentaries . Of course, this is an example of political excesses, and it is more of an interpretation of the plain reality itself. It is just how to express it to be more artistically attractive . This is the key point of the work.
2017, 3, 14
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