The film "Salesman" released by the famous Iranian director Asghar Faraday in 2016 tells the story of a young couple's burglary in their new home. It revolves around two diametrically opposed demands: the desire to seek the truth and the desire to settle things in peace. The relationship between the two has become more and more tense; on the one hand, the answer to the incident, on the other hand, is the conflict between the husband and wife. The film continues Faraday's consistent thinking on moral dilemmas: when both moral forks are unsatisfactory, does right or wrong matter? But "people are like individuals only in sorrow" (speaking of Montesquieu). In order to express such a central idea, it is necessary to express the normality of life in a dramatic situation. Therefore, the choice of theme stories and the difficulty of narration will greatly increase; the play of "Salesman" has almost completely solved this problem. One question, it tells the story thick, but ingenious - how does it do it? The following will be a brief analysis from the perspective of the play.
·Composite structure of play within play
The film's hero, Ait Sami, is not a salesman, but a high school teacher. The salesman's identity refers to the play "Death of a Salesman" he was rehearsing with his friends. Theater rehearsal and performances account for a large proportion of the film. At first glance, this play does not have much connection with the main plot, but it cannot be separated, because it plays a key intertextual role.
Before we get back to this complexity, let's go a little further. When watching "The Salesman", I frequently thought of Li Cangdong's "Burning", both of which describe that in the modern social environment, people are subject to various social rules and live very depressed, and this depression leads to People gradually filled with anger, but nowhere to vent. "Burning" completes the emotional catharsis with the protagonist's final eruption, but in "Salesman", this catharsis does not exist. Ait Sammy implements his gentleness as a teacher of the people. Obviously, his emotions are about to explode. But he always endured it so that the audience was not only angry but also understood.
The things that cannot be vented in life are transferred to the stage. The stage of this play-in-play plays two roles: 1. It echoes the events in life from afar—the change in the attitudes of the two couples and their attitude towards their friends are all expressed on the stage with the lines of the play; 2. The play is a The catharsis of life, the things that I dare not say and the things I dare not do in life, are all said on the stage. Ait Sami thinks Bobaka, who is looking for a house for himself, is an asshole, but he only speaks under the guise of another identity on stage; Lana's line in the performance to her husband in the coffin is actually a hint that the two are broken A seductive marriage relationship.
Complexity exists in every corner of the film even if it leaves part of the plot of the play within the play. The first scene at the beginning of the film is very interesting. The excavator is destroying the building. The husband and wife are calling from a distance. This is actually a hint of the relationship between the two characters: the relationship between the two is crumbling like this dangerous building. And by the end of the film, everyone is back in the building, but everything from the past no longer exists.
·The combination of the narrative of life flow and the extreme dramatic situation
The narrative rhythm of the film is slow and emergencies are sparse, and a lot of space is devoted to depicting people's emotions and states; but under the surface of the flow of life, there are extremely dramatic events. Sexual assault, finding the enemy, revenge, each element is a strong plot, but it is so realistic when combined. The molester who entered the house is not a young and strong boy, but an old man with a heart attack, and the Avengers will call all his relatives together and expose his hypocritical mask in public - we will marvel at the strange conception of this story , but also take it for granted, and feel that this thing actually happened off the screen, because the film uses a long narrative to create an atmosphere of life, it tells us what kind of social environment, what kind of stories breed, will The film suddenly rises from the unique experience of the individual to the broad commonality.
· The constant reversal of human nature
Stories, conflicts, turning points... These elements in a play are essentially there to describe people and their fate. The "Salesman" is different from Hollywood's masked characters, with a single character change. The characters in its play are multi-faceted and complex. Ait Sami is a high-level intellectual, elegant and gentle, so after the accident, he still maintains his usual politeness. But he also grew up in Iran's shameful culture, and he couldn't openly accept his wife's insults. After the accident, his attitude towards his wife became more indifferent, even a little repulsive. All he is pursuing is not to get justice for his wife, but personal revenge, and he wants to return all the humiliation he has suffered to the perpetrator. But deep down in his heart, he was still kind and soft, and he was attached to his wife. It was because of these two hearts that he let go of the perpetrator. And the wife Lana, as a victim, transitioned to a forgiver, she seems to stand on the highest point of morality, but she is also condemned by social morality as an "unclean woman" because she was harassed by her husband. The man outside saw the body. Her forgiveness, from beginning to end, was mixed with evasion and selfishness to calm things down. Like her husband, she was just thinking about her own feelings without communicating with the other party, which is also the reason for their tragic marriage. As the perpetrator, the old man, on the surface, is a loving husband and wife, and has high morals, but he has done shameless deeds. But is he a total villain? No, everyone has evil thoughts. If it weren't for the occasional drunkenness and the accidental opening of the door, he might have been a good citizen, a good husband and a father who was more "law-abiding" until his death. Everyone in this film is complex, not clean, not pure, even the landlord, Bobaka, keeps claiming that he doesn't know that the original guest is a prostitute, but in fact is a regular customer of prostitutes; this is also the main point of the film : Humans are complex, black and white, so how can morality be so distinct?
After watching the film, what I admire most is not the exquisite story, but its ingenuity. Achieving this effect is based on the accumulation of every scene and every detail in the script. The director and screenwriter put a sum of money for prostitution as a flashpoint for Atsami, and put a few pieces outside the bathroom. Glass for molesters to step on...Completing a story is like creating a world where everything follows.
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