The film "The Salesman" won two awards for Best Screenplay and Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2017. Farhadi continues his previous creative style, still focusing on an ordinary couple as in "A Parting", using invisible and difficult to detect methods to reflect and outline a religion in a period of change society.
Amade, a teacher at a school, and his wife, Lana, had to find a makeshift apartment because the house they lived in was demolished. Shortly after moving in, Lana was attacked while at home alone, and the couple's relationship began to change after the attack. In a society where a woman can only go out on the street if she is completely wrapped up, it is even more unacceptable that a woman's body is seen. Amade does not want people to know about this, but also wants to track down the real murderer. It is difficult to control. Emotions permeated around him, leaving his closest friends, especially his wife, in the same tormented state as him. After Lana was injured, it was hard to accept it and did not want to mention it again. The story unfolds in this self-struggle and the contradictory construction of husband and wife.
1. What kind of female image did the film create?
In the foreshadowing of the story, the background construction of Iranian society can also be seen everywhere. And this kind of construction is always at the back of the story, and it is always related to the story. These exist as the help of the story, and they affect the characters in the story all the time. The film starts with a forced demolition. There is no foreshadowing of the demolition. Even the characters in the play don't know why it happened. The long shot at the beginning is panicked people shouting that the building is about to collapse. on the excavator. In a simple shot, the broken glass and cracks on the wall herald the change in the relationship between husband and wife. The sudden construction and the panicked crowd reflect the Iranian society in a period of change and the living conditions of people in this situation.
In addition, among the many factors that promote the development of the story, it is a white description of this society. When Amad had to share a car with others, the women in the back row insisted on being in the front row, reflecting the Iranian women's view of themselves. After that, after Lana's accident, there was a psychological shadow, and she was unwilling to recall the specific circumstances of the incident, she did not want to be at home alone, and she did not want to take a bath, all of which were related to this kind of woman's attitude towards herself. Aimad's determination to find the perpetrators of the incident is also related to this view. When Aimad parked the van left by the perpetrator in the parking lot, a female neighbor said: "These people should be put on chains. Go parade the streets and humiliate them." While cleaning up the bloodstains left by the abuser on the stairs, another neighbor said: "Mr. Alimoradi thought your wife was dead when he opened the door and saw her." When he got to Amad, he didn't say anything, and before that, he asked Lana who had rescued her from the bathroom. Amad's "revenge" action was carried out step by step, and could not escape the influence of social concepts, even under the premise that his wife might be hurt.
The director did not take his own criticism of society as the theme, but the influence of society on people is everywhere, invisible, but everywhere. The female image in "Salesman" is not at all the image of the extremely repressed Muslim women. Women are not discriminated against in receiving knowledge and family status, nor do they have to be covered by clothing. However, both men's perceptions of women and women's perceptions of themselves are under the influence of religion, and this influence makes everyone have a psychological identity. In the film, the protagonist is rehearsing "Death of a Salesman". An actress is dressed in solid clothes and a heavy hat, but she uses this dress to pretend that she has just come out of the bathroom, and she is playing against the actor. It was a laugh. "She came out of the bathroom wearing a coat, and said, I can't go out without wearing clothes, so I couldn't help laughing." The contradiction brought by this habit, but can not find a suitable coat to cover.
2. The structure of hidden and restrained plays
The hidden and restrained emotions and the rigorous structure of the play jointly create a very realistic story. On the surface, it is calm, but in fact, the characters are turbulent in their hearts, and they have been suffering from the contradictions and entanglements brought by the big environment. Although this hidden and restrained narrative method is not as attractive as the conflicting plot, it has a unique artistic style and shocking appeal, reflecting the psychological state of the characters with a very real sense in the audience, and their Living conditions under the influence of various social concepts.
This kind of concealment and restraint is not only reflected in the plot setting, but also in the play by using the play-in-play technique to contain the characters' anger, sadness and other emotions that are about to erupt. There are only two places in the film that break out. One is that the female protagonist is suffering on the stage and the performance is forced to stop, and the other is that the male protagonist imposes lines on the stage and scolds his friends. And the rest are in normal performances. As a normal thing, the stage has become an excellent place for characters to hide their mentality. On the surface, it looks extremely normal, but the inside of things has changed. In the play, there are changes in the relationship between the two husbands and wives. From the beginning, the two sat together talking and laughing. Later, the two stayed away from each other. Until the end, the two made up separately, turned their backs to each other, and said nothing to each other. , the relationship between husband and wife has undergone irreversible changes.
This kind of play-in-play technique has not been widely and dramatically applied to film creation, but it has adjusted the narrative rhythm of the film, continued the development of the story, and provided some metaphorical extended interpretations. The ending of "Death of a Salesman": The salesman played by Amade is lying in a coffin, and his wife commemorates him. On a quiet and solemn stage, the audience in the theater is watching the drama seriously, while the one imprisoned by Amade has a heart attack. The sick old man is still alive and dead. Under this restraint, many subtexts are hidden, and these texts are constantly converging in the minds of the audience, reacting, and gathering great energy.
3. Moral dilemmas and marital relations
From the point of view of the Iranian middle class, focusing on the relationship between husband and wife, through an event that caused a moral dilemma, the whole family is exposed. society to sort out and present. The intrusion of the unknown person is the event that triggered the "moral dilemma". The "moral dilemma" set up by Farhadi always has the following characteristics: there is no real bad person, irreconcilable self-contradiction, and the collapse of the relationship.
At the beginning of the incident, the dignity of a man made him unable to hold back his desire for revenge, but he didn't want to make it public and couldn't call the police. The first layer of predicament was cast on Amad. The will to revenge makes his relationship with his wife farther and farther away, and he no longer even cares about Lana's feelings. The suppressed anger made him angry with his friend, and the friend who provided him with a house had good intentions, but the two of them became strangers in the conflict.
The abuser Amad seeks turns out to be an old man, which brings him into a new moral dilemma. Originally, Amad thought the perpetrator was the son-in-law of the old man and was going to use violence, but when he learned about the old man, he began to struggle between revenge and forgiveness, and finally decided to get revenge by letting the old man tell the truth in front of his wife and children. the goal of. The old man suffered a heart attack for the first time, and the two tried their best to help the old man. At this time, Amade had given up the idea of revenge, and with the last slap, the anger that could no longer be suppressed defeated the kindness in his heart.
The old man suffered a second heart attack, and the director did not give the old man an ending, but in the end, with the empty eyes when the two made up, the relationship between the two had come to an end. "How did people become cows?" the student asked Amade, who answered silently, "slowly". The phrase "slowly" also confirms the changes in himself and the relationship between his husband and wife. "Salesman" presents the audience with a changing relationship between husband and wife, but in it, social, cultural, gender, religion, class and many other factors are mixed into it. A small event has a huge impact.
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