Originally published on The Paper on May 22, 2017, "There is a drama".
There is no shortage of movies in the history of film that use stage plays as a mirror image to outline the similar fate of the protagonists. Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's "Talk to Her", one end and one end are fragments of "Café Mueller" and "Passionate Mazurka" choreographed by Pina Bausch, dancers on the stage Use gloomy or lively body language to interpret the different emotions of the soft-hearted male protagonist. His other masterpiece "All About My Mother", Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire", which has been performed in many places, runs through the whole film, connecting the origin and end of the heroine's pain.
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi won this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for "The Salesman," a rehearsal of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" written in 1949. In the film, Farhadi "choreographed" the play about how the American dream devours little people, synthesizing the way his foreign counterparts used stage plays in "Tell Her" and "All About My Mother", It not only takes the preparations before the first and last performances of "Death of a Salesman", echoes the emotional state of Yin Maide and Lena, the hero and heroine, from intimacy to alienation, but also uses the official performance of the play to profile the current situation in Iran, pointing out that the two Emotional change is inevitable
The movie opens with a stage set-up for the upcoming "Death of a Salesman." The neon sign of the hotel built on scaffolding is far more eye-catching than the tables, chairs and beds in a home environment. It explains that Willy, a salesman in the background of the rapid development of the American economy, walks on the road all the year round, indicating that Iran, which is tearing down everything and rebuilding, takes the hero and heroine. The middle-class family represented by them, as the middle-class cornerstone of society, has huge security risks from the external shelter to the internal members. And the shaking inside is created by the instability of the outside.
Immediately after the stage set, all the residents of the building where Yin Maide and his wife lived were forced to get up from their beds in the middle of the night to escape. The excavator that suddenly "visited" downstairs was shaking the foundation of the building. This scene nakedly reveals the living conditions of the Iranian people, just like the old Willies in the United States, who were run over by the rumbling train of the times. The modern facilities in their homes and the iPhones in their hands show that Western material concepts have taken root in Iran, where Eastern and Western cultures meet. However, Western civilization and order are prohibitive, and the lives of many people in their homes and even a large group of people are at risk. Immediately buried in the soil.
The chain effect caused by this caused Reina to bathe in a new residence that the couple thought they had picked up a lot of money, and was violently attacked by a strange man. She felt sorry for Reina, but at the same time, like most married men in Iran, she was taboo against the physical violence of her wife. Yin Mai De, who was seen by the victim and the male neighbor who rescued her, gradually fell into an emotional and moral dilemma.
This dilemma of action, brought about by Iran's deep-rooted sense of tradition, is repeated in Farhadi's films. "Beautiful City" focuses on juvenile delinquency and adult forgiveness. The father who lost his beloved daughter did not hesitate to bankrupt his family and vowed to make the murderer who just turned 18 years old pay his debts in blood in accordance with the law, but he could not avoid the fact that his stepdaughter was physically disabled, and forgive the murderer It is possible to get paid for the treatment of unrelated daughters. Farhadi's last film "A Parting", which also won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the female nurse faced Nader's Alzheimer's father's incontinence in the toilet. Be educated not to touch the body of an adult male other than your husband.
In many of Farhadi's previous films, the Qur'an, the supreme classic of Islam, guides the behavior of the characters, but out of consideration for their own interests, the characters repeatedly break the classic teachings in their words and deeds. Nader, who is already quite westernized in his way of doing things in "A Farewell", did not dare to put his hand on the "Koran" and swear even though he knew for certain that she was pregnant after hitting the nurse. However, in order to receive a large amount of compensation, the husband of the nurse not only lied to the Koran himself, but also asked his wife to violate the will of the book.
In "Salesman," however, the Qur'an disappeared from the screen. The source of the confusion of Yin Mai De, who relies on credit card payment for shopping, is the Iranian blood rooted in his body, which drags his Western-style upbringing.
Like other middle-class people, Yin Maide is quite dissatisfied with today's Iran, but he is kind and upright and lives a positive and optimistic life. Seeing that the building was about to collapse, he slammed on the door and called Lena to get up, while helping the disadvantaged neighbors; unable to stop Lena from clearing the former tenant's belongings, the rain in the middle of the night made him get up and find plastic sheets to cover the things; as a middle school teacher , He accepted all kinds of jokes made by students in class, invited them to watch "Death of a Salesman" starring him, and enlightened students to think about the crisis of trust between people after class.
Reina's encounter activated the beast factor in Yin Mai De's heart, allowing him to maintain his face as a traditional Iranian man through unprovoked venting. When the process of finding the perpetrator was frustrated, the school students and the troupe colleagues became his carriers to pass on his hatred. His attitude towards the former took a 180-degree turn. He performed on the same stage with the latter, and even used Miller's lines without authorization. Modification, "using the topic to play" abusive colleagues for him and his wife's accommodation, which was originally the "reception center" of the woman who had been Fengchen, and brought in her former "clients" and made them get a lot of bad luck.
What's more extreme is that Yin Mai De gradually treated his wife coldly, tearing open Lena's slowly healing psychological wounds again and again.
Yin Mai De determined that the perpetrator was an elderly man with heart disease. He ignored his physical condition and asked him to tell the whole story in front of his wife, daughter and son-in-law. Reina tried her best to dissuade him, or even threatened the end of the relationship between the two. , Yin Maide was unmoved, still using his fists to try to make an exit for his plight, not forgetting to tell the truth to the old man's family in disguise.
The so-called face of Iranian men who ignore the self-esteem of women and push them to an unbearable situation is also one of the usual themes of Farhadi's films.
With the eyes of a girl who is about to enter the palace of marriage and live by part-time jobs, "Fireworks Wednesday" tells the story of three women who are unmarried, married, and divorced. A married husband who is suspicious of a TV station and divorced from home The hairdresser had an affair, and her husband swore that he couldn't stop her from following her, in exchange for her husband punching and kicking her in the street, but in fact, for a long time in the past, her husband did put his emotional focus on how to deal with the glamorous woman. Neighbors stay on top of each other. He was violent towards his wife, but because he felt that his face was damaged.
Farhadi's other suspenseful "About Yili" also uses the whereabouts of Yili, a young and beautiful girl who was mixed in with a group of friends on a picnic party. In a reclusive situation, the woman who brought Yili into the team became the target of accusations by several highly educated and successful men when Yili's boyfriend appeared, the mysteries piled up and the matter was difficult to end. .
In addition, "Salesman" is also like many of Farhadi's films. In addition to telling about the loss of the middle class and gender inequality, it still integrates into the collision between this class and the common people, and completely draws a picture of the floating world of Iranian society. The crisis is related to an open end, which may intensify, and it does not rule out turning the corner.
Nader, who has dealt with the nurse's family in "A Parting", somewhat understands that life is not all composed of binary elements. Good and bad are just a thought, and there are many unknown choices for a daughter to follow her father or her mother. relieved. The unmarried girl in "Fireworks Wednesday" smiles in the face of her lover in the middle of the night. The marriage she saw and heard in a day is difficult to inspire her. She can't solve other people's marriage problems. on the sidelines.
Going back to "The Salesman," assuming the elderly intruder's life wasn't destroyed by Yoon Madd's revenge, could his relationship with his family be intact? The film does not explain. The last scene is also left for aftertaste. In the dressing room before the last performance of "Death of a Salesman", Yin Maide and Lena have their own thoughts on the stage makeup of Willie and his wife, and the couple's "staying together" is jointly performed on the stage. The two of them, after taking off their makeup and returning to their home without the audience, how should they continue to manage their marriage?
Let the audience imagine. Miller of the year realised Willy's existence from career to marriage and family in name only. Today's Farhadi does not have the courage to "face up" like that.
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