The Salesman Reviews

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Asghar Farhadi, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, after his French movie (‘Le passé’) and before his Spanish movie (‘Todos lo saben’), Farhadi went back to Iran to make this flick which turned out to be another critical success. Indeed, even though it is admirable that the Iranian master would try to direct some movies abroad, to be honest, the movies made in his home country were so much better. As usual, I didn’t know anything about the story before watching the damned thing and I have to admit that it took me a while to get into it but, pretty much like ‘Jodaeiye Nader az Simin’, it turned out to be another fascinating mix of a thriller with a realistic drama. Indeed, the core of the story was dealing with what did happen to Rana which was basically some pretty basic thriller setup. However, in the contrary to your average US thriller, there was no intrusive music cue telling what you should expect or what you should feel, in fact, there was no music whatsoever. Above all, what was so interesting was the fact that there were no good guys or bad guys. I mean, for example, you could argue that Emad was sometimes acting pretty much like a douchebag but, considering the circumstances, it was actually rather understandable and, in fact, it was completely relatable to me. Eventually, in my opinion, this movie was about the fact that the aftermath following a dramatic event can be just as or even more traumatic than the actual event itself. Anyway, Farhadi’s movies display such an indepth analysis of what it means to be human, it is just fascinating to behold and this movie was another great example. To conclude, it was an incredibly rewarding movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Asghar Farhadi’s work.