Watch out, spoilers!
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Asghar Farhadi’s 2016 film, The Salesman/Forushande, I liked as much as I liked his previous films I watched. There is something in them that catches, although you do not always sympathize with the heroes and take their side. In this story, the incident is clearly not from the category of widespread, but in the context of their lives and mores looks even more terrible. Not very young, but childless couple lives in complete harmony, he is a teacher at school, calm and reasonable, able to find a common language with the boys he teaches, together they play in the evenings in the amateur theater, where at that moment they stage Arthur Miller’s play “The Death of a Salesman”, where they also play spouses. One night in their house there was an accident – the house because of the construction work, began to literally crack at the seams, because of which the residents had to urgently leave it, and then look for housing. One of their acquaintances, with whom they played together in the theater, offered them a kind of not completely vacated apartment, from where the former tenant had not even taken all his belongings. They moved out, not knowing how it would end for them. One evening the husband stayed, called his wife, she asked him to go to the store, she began to prepare to take a shower, someone called the intercom, she, without asking, being sure that it was her husband, opened the door, and then the husband, coming home, found an empty apartment, blood in the bathroom and neighbors who told him that someone had entered the apartment and attacked his wife. And then we observe how events unfold against the background of this incident and people begin to behave and what is revealed about them. I’m not going to tell you, but for those who like Farhadi’s movies, I recommend just watching.
In Cannes, the lead actor Shahab Hosseini received the prize, and the director received the prize for best screenplay, and then the film received an Oscar for best film in a foreign language, in addition, received several more awards and nominations at other festivals.