The moral dilemmas in Farhadi's films are always sharp and unsolved.
A couple in Kochi rented a house provided by a colleague because of cracks in the old house, but their wife was molested and injured by gangsters while taking a shower in the bathroom of the new house. The husband wanted to call the police, but the wife did not want to be humiliated again. Just when the two were about to forget the pain and continue to live, the husband discovered that the gangster still left behind "prostitution funds" at home. Unable to bear the humiliation, the husband followed the van left behind at the time of the incident to find and confirm that the gangster was a sick old man with a happy family. The wife couldn't bear the breakup of another family, but the husband asked him to confess in front of his wife and daughter. The old man was overwhelmed by the pressure and suffered a heart attack, and the couple eventually became strangers.
According to normal social logic, the perpetrator is the strong, the victim is the weak, and the perpetrator should be punished to make up for the harm suffered by the victim. But what if this power balance is reversed? In "The Salesman", the perpetrator is not a powerful and dangerous man, but a frail and sick old man with a harmonious family. In contrast, the husband of the victim is young, strong, powerful, and full of aggression. So in this case, should the weak be punished for making mistakes?
Adler, the founder of individual psychology, once said: "In our culture, the weak are actually very powerful and privileged." Infants are one of the most vulnerable groups, but they can dominate adults without anyone else's domination. Because they are weak, others must accommodate, and it is immoral not to accommodate. The old, the weak, the sick and the disabled, this gangster and old man accounted for three, so even if the male protagonist was in charge, he was in a passive position. Either knocked out teeth and swallowed blood, or if you want to get justice, you will have to bear the notoriety of bullying the weak. This moral dilemma is common and unsolvable in our cultural context.
In addition to "weak privileges", "The Salesman" also revealed a terrifying truth. You may not know your true self. Only when you have a dilemma can you expose your true three views. I believe that the male protagonist really loves his wife from the bottom of his heart, and believes that he respects women and advocates equality between men and women. He is also passing on such modern values to the students by himself. When the lady in the car humiliated him by changing seats, and even the students slapped him, he generously comforted the students. The lady may have had a bad experience, so To understand. But such an elegant, highly educated teacher still has deep-rooted patriarchal ideas in his bones.
It was him, not his wife, who really couldn't get out of this matter. From insisting on calling the police after the incident, to paying close attention to the minivan, until the anger reached its peak when he learned that the pasta was bought with "prostitution funds". In fact, he has always regarded his wife as his appendage rather than an independent person, so the violation of his wife is equivalent to the violation of his masculine dignity. He ignored his wife's efforts to forget this tragic memory, yelled at his wife in the name of the character during the performance, ruined the frightening dinner prepared by his wife, and finally forced the old man to death despite his wife's dissuasion... In the process , the aggressive male bullying displayed by the husband is more physically harmful to the wife than the so-called "gangster", and it is also doomed that the two will eventually part ways.
"The Salesman" is a good hint at the breakdown of the relationship between husband and wife through the way of play within play. Life is like a play, tearing off the veil of calm on the surface of life, there are unbearable sores inside.
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