Asghar Farhadi’s films through analyzing "The Salesman"

The Providence of the Author

Amir Siadat

In a scene that is a turning point in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity after Walter Neff and Phyllis subtly carry out their sinister plan (killing Phyllis' husband and then staging it so that everything seem "accident"), they quickly get into a car to leave the place. Neff starts the engine, but it doesn’t work. Distracted and confused, he tries again, and after a while, the car moves, so that the two can temporarily escape. In the screenplay by Wilder and Chandler, It is the detective-like tact of Barton Keyes' and his ability to analyze the plot that disgraces the murderers. This is the common and reasonable rule of crime dramas, which in the end, a wise and thoughtful mind will reveal the criminals, and not the accident. The touch of humorous Wilder is clearly evident in this scene. He shows in a fine (and of course instructive) way that if the car was not lit by chance and remained as evidence of the crime, Double Indemnity would have wasted its hidden dramatic potential easily and would have fallen into the abyss of "suddens" and would have followed the path of a pile of trivial works. It shows to what extent Wilder as a writer could disrupt the natural course of events and he did not. He let his characters go their own way and carry the plot forward without any obstacles. Wildery's instruction tells us that the insertion of the factor of accident, right at the turning point of the classic plot, is not appropriate because it affects the events in an imposed way by means of the bold and God-like role of the author. This scene was mentioned not only because the van being left at the scene of the crime and then how to use it to trap the criminal in The Salesman has become one of the controversial issues among critics and defenders of the film; The more important reason for proposing this hypothesis is that Farhadi's cinema is basically based on the same authorial authority that filmmakers like Wilder clearly avoided. Whether we like it or not, the obvious feature of Farhadi's films - at least from Fireworks Wednesday onwards - is that they force the audience for more precision than usual in all the details. A viewer who has become aware of the "craft" of screenwriting, has learned to keep a close eye on all aspects, because any seemingly small problem may be used in the future and find a decisive role. Undoubtedly, getting the mass of the audience used to this kind of sensitivity, besides being one of the valuable achievements of Farhadi's cinema, has also led to his own work become more difficult. Today, the audience of The Salesman has its sensory tentacles so strong that some of the dramatic details of the film become questionable or seem even weak and fake. Perhaps one of the reasons why the discussion of "believability" is constantly raised when facing the film is that here we are not dealing with an incident, but with a sequence of accidents and impositions: fate and destiny have joined hand in hand, so that the old man arrived at the apartment right when Emad should have arrived and Rana was so impatient to go to the bathroom that she left the door open for him with ease. A stranger trespassed into someone's privacy, left a continuous trail of blood on the stairs of the apartment, the neighbors heard terrible noises and found Rana injured and crumpled in the corner of the bathroom, but none of them are worried about the repetition of such a tragedy. No one wants to report to the police. On the other hand, the erring old man would do whatever it takes to be identified! He leaves his phone and the switch of his car. When Rana parks the van (which is the strongest possible clue) outside the house, he gets into and drives it and resumes his daily works normally! When Majid, his son-in-law, after Emad's insistence and the mediation of the snack seller, finally agrees to help Emad to move the furniture, instead of him - who "accidentally" decided to deviate his way for buying for the wedding on the promised day - goes to Emad's apartment to get trapped!

It seems that behind all the puzzle-like and organized events of The Salesman there is a powerful and strong force that everyone, from Rana and the neighbors to the workers who work with the van and the old man and his son-in-law, are subjugated to it! I want to call this force "The author's determinism". If we exclude About Elly, "author's determinism" has less allowed Farhadi's over-dramatic and sometimes highly formulated and mechanical screenplays to have a pleasant harmony with his hyper-realistic style. The mechanism and treatment of the screenplay often stand out from the films. Farhadi's constant meddling control over the world of his works becomes more controversial, especially when it comes to his self-restraint and neutral outlook and his democratic relativism. Oriented arrangement of story materials, to make a confusing can be traced and recognized in all his films, especially in the most admired of them, A Separation (you can see the engineered chain of "suddens" simply in the introduction of that film: Hojjat's being arrested - "accidentally" when he is supposed to go to Nader's house for work - so that Razie inevitably goes to work instead of him, the trash bag is being torn apart in the staircase and the door is being left open and the old man leaves the house, Razie has an accident, the old man – not only - falls out of the bed – but also - loses his ability to speak, Nader "accidentally" and "exceptionally" comes home early - just when Razie has tied his father to the bed - and as a result of that fighting with Razie, Razie falls down and miscarriages). But the answer to how and why this time these chain of events in The Salesman has attracted so much attention and has become controversial, can be helpful for guessing the future of his cinema. The Salesman, at first glance, gives way to interpretation more than Farhadi's previous works, and "the construction" is more visible in it. The distinctive feature of his works (and perhaps the most audience-friendly principle in his cinema) has always been the combination of elements of mystery drama with harsh realism. This simultaneous loyalty to reality and fiction/drama can be found in very few contemporary filmmakers. About Elly as much as it pulls the audience along due to the magnetism of its enigmatic strains, it also has a frightening and shocking effect on him due to its strong realism. In general, the police drama is spectacular and fun because Its central position is far from the audience. When the characteristics of police drama are being used in order to shape realistic story of the apartment dwellers, It makes the audience fall down from the previous safe and stable position. The new issue that happened in The Salesman is an independent role that is given to the “play”. Death of a Salesman the play that occasionally interrupts the course of events of The Salesman has a strange desire to be meaningful in relation to the events around it. The discovery of the relationship between these two texts is like a double-edged sword, which on the one hand directs attention to the "arrangement" and stiffed engineered nature of the film, and on the other hand, adds to the richness of The Salesman and makes it a multi-layered film, and can open a new horizon in Farhadi’s films.

The thematic expansion of the film is a result of the symmetries that the comparison of the two texts (and even the relationships behind the scenes of the play) necessarily brings up: Willy of Miller's play becomes the double of the erring old man of the film through such an analogy, so that Emad's final slap shows how much the actor is unable of understanding the role that he is performing it on stage every night! On the other hand, Miss Francis of Miller's play is defined in connection with the Ahoo and - through the bathroom scene of the play - Rana, and the shapes that the child of the Ahoo has drawn on the wall of the room is completed by the child of Sanam, so that the actor (Sanam) and the role (Francis) are also connected and characters mirror each other. From this point of view, it should be said that some parts related to the theater have multifaceted echo. For example, in the last scene of the play, Linda's monologues next to Willy's coffin, just as on one level it can be a prophetic image of what will happen to the old man and his wife, on another level - and in a hidden and symbolic way - foretells of the end of Rana and Emad's relationship. It seems that the film insists on spreading its message through the invisible thread that can be found among people. Through these motifs and symmetries, the main theme of the film unfolds smoothly: censorship. The layered world of The Salesman takes the concept of censorship from its most explicit form, i.e. supervision in the revision scene (and of course the rehearsal scene of Francis leaving the bathroom in the play of Death of a Salesman) or the school administrators` opposition to Emad's presenting selected books to the students, to the most personal and private areas and in the way the couple faces the issue of “rape”. The Salesman is made to show under what mechanism people even censor themselves. What we know about the incident according to the film is doubtful. Neighbors' narration (mistaking continuous noises for husband and wife fighting) does not coincide with Rana's narration (that when she noticed a stranger's hand touching her hair, she hit her head to the glass and passed out) in terms of time chronicle. Apart from this, Rana's own story is contradictory. In one scene she says that she did not see the stranger's face, but in another scene she says that the look of one of the audiences of the theatre reminded her of the stranger! And these are the contradictions that drives Emad crazy. He wants, and at the same time, does not want to know what exactly happened. He is also subjected to self-censorship. There is a secret in Rana's silence (and in her fluctuating behavior) that does not allow us to completely rule out the possibility of something more than what she has mentioned. If in the critical discussions, the controversy over "harassment" or "rape" is been over-longed, the reason is that everyone, in the back of their minds, considers the possibility of something more than just a stranger entering the bathroom. The audience who is been denied of seeing the scene of "rape" - not necessarily according to the censorship regulations in Iran, but more because of an aesthetic necessity - is no longer aware of the truth. He is abandoned in the desert of absence! The tension of ethics in complex situation at the end of The Salesman is a progressive and democratic conclusion, but Farhadi's drama has gone through a path that seems too arbitrary to reach it! Such a contradiction inevitably brings up the long-standing and constant issue of the filmmaker's relationship with the duality of tradition and innovation, which can be the focus of discussion in all of Farhadi's works, but his debut immature film explains it more clearly. The centrality of Sharia principles (dowry rules) and totemic issues (Namus) in Dancing in the Dust embodies the filmmaker's traditional preoccupations in the language of metaphor. Mystical elements are scattered everywhere: for stubborn and naive Nazar-Ali the vast and barren desert is a test of maturity, and in the silence of the heaven and the stinginess of the earth, everything has the resonance of the ritual of austerity. The “mentor” is an experienced old man, knowledgeable about snake’s poison, alone, without a wife and children, as if he is cut off from time and place where his silence has made him companion with the “heaven”, and his stone face similar to the sterile earth. He has a meditative solitude and a paternal figure, and Nazar-Ali calls him by his father's name, "Heidar". A name with the echo of the word "father" (“Pedar” in Farsi). In that deadly desert, Heidar is Nazar-Ali's only support, but every time he leaves his wishes unanswered. Like the heaven, he is stingy and mean, and he is the representative of the heaven, or the objective manifestation of the anger and mercy hidden in the providence. When Nazar-Ali, despairing and abandoned, complains and blaspheme, the words mingle Heidar and the divinity together for a moment. During the ups and downs of a semi-mystical path, the restless young man is eventually tamed; by his finger being cutting off by his father; By being away form the woman. Finally, the son obeys the tradition of the father; A father who is the guardian of tribal customs and approves Nazar-Ali's choice (separation from a woman who people "say" her mother is immoral); A "zealous" father, with hands stained with blood. The echo of the Old Testament of the film and the final frames indicate the fulfillment of the model of hero’s journey: the son will follow the path of the father. Nazar-Ali is left alone on the threshold of the road, carrying the memory of an unfulfilled love. He will also become "Heidar". His final situation in Dancing in the Dust is ironically consistent with the situation of the young filmmaker at the beginning of the journey. Like Nazar-Ali, he is completing a path that will be dissolving him in Heidar/heaven. From The Beautiful City onwards, he takes the place of the heaven of Dancing in the Dust. He sits on a throne and brings down calamities on his characters, and every time he ties their fortunes in such a blind knot that they all end up as eternal damned. Every time you feel that the chaos is coming to an end, he moves the pieces of his highly calculated story in such a way as to leave no escape for characters. And the main question is always forgotten behind the arguments: despite this level of calculation, is it possible to speak of the neutral and purely questioning point of view of the author?

The fate of the creatures of this authorial authority must be eternally hapless. For this reason, even when Abul Qasim of Beautiful City wants to forgive his daughter's killer, the idea of marrying the crippled daughter is another knot that will leave the problem unsolved. For this reason, when in A Separation everyone is sitting at the negotiating table to end the tragedy, Nader suddenly asks Razie to swear, and Razie, who can get rid of a tragic situation with an expedient lie, (like the Sepideh in About Elly(, does not accept to swear, so that the interpreting of the film through the lens of class conflicts bring us to the conclusion that the deprived class, unlike the upper middle class, still knows morality and spirituality, and the helpless residents of this class will remain miserable and ill-fated until the end. The conditions of the story are carefully "written" and "estimated" to achieve the desired result. The people of the bottom of the city must remain miserable. The final position of The Salesman has become the focus of controversies which mainly refer to the issue of age and class position of the old man. Perhaps, if instead of the sick old man, one of wealthy lovers of Ahoo had come to her house, at the end of the film, there would be no more sympathetic and "relativistic" view. In Farhadi`s films, the upper class have always been unfavored and apostate. Their lives are full of immorality, mistrust and disloyalty. The traditional understandings in the twists and turns of Farhadi's films have gone to the sidelines without being challenged and have been assumed to be definite and natural (ignoring the general judgment about Nazar-Ali's marriage in Dancing in the Dust and lowering the total of his marital crisis to the provision of dowry, the implicit approval of the atonement difference in Beautiful City, showing the necessity of a woman's reliance on a man in order to be safe from the masculinity created in Tehran in Fireworks Wednesday, the elimination of all the attractive aspects of middle class life or the beauties of France in A Separation and The Past). Anyway, this is the good point that Farhadi made the final situation of The Salesman extremely special by arranging the elements of the story (Isn't it the fact that basically from ancient Greece until now, the work of tragedies has been to test general rules with special situations?) but the problem is that he insists on generalizing this special situation! As is said before the film subtly tries to connect Rana, Ahoo, and Sanam with various signs and by creating symmetrical examples and establish their position as victims. On the other hand, the men, from the actor opposite Sanam or Babak, who is looking for revelry, to Sanam's ex-husband, whom the boy does not like, or Emad, who gradually becomes “a cow” are all qualified to play a complementary role, as the sacrificer. Jahanbakhsh Nouraei (the Iranian film critic), in his article about The Salesman, has well defined the threads of connection between people and generalizing situations, but left this important question unanswered: can generalization happen in a vacuum? For example, The Facts about Leila Daughter of Idris by Bahram Beyzai, which has been compared to The Salesman in some reviews and interviews, is a screenplay that shows in great detail that under what mechanism in a patriarchal society which relies on tribal habits, Leila is transformed to dissolve in the figure of the previous tenant of her apartment (Azam). In The Salesman, however, the symmetries are the offspring of fate and must be accepted. Farhadi is working as the woman in the taxi; He destroys everyone all together. And this is equally repulsive. It is as if his modern and democratic side wants to make the situation special and distinct, but his traditional and authoritarian side tends to generalize. But how much Farhadi's victim and angelic women really benefit from "femininity"?

Emad's violence and oppressive authority, since it leads to revenge, can be measured and understood in comparison with Heidar's criminal act in Dancing in the Dust as a result of his fear of jeopardizing masculine’s security and endangering his marital privacy. It is not strange if neither Elly nor Sepideh in About Elly, whom have somehow bypassed traditional and moral assumptions and general norms, end up well; The first one is swallowed up by the waves of narration and the second one is tamed by collective agreement. Although Farhadi with a film like The Past has set boundaries far from the rigid moral-traditional frameworks, also mobilizes all his forces to make the unfaithful husband remorseful and summons him to the bedside of his comatose wife. The moralism of Farhadi can even subjugated Simin of Fireworks Wednesday, who appears to be more domineering than others at first glance: after Simin with self-sacrificing ends the relationship with Morteza (so that Mojdeh doesn't get hurt further), the camera follows her to show how the men on motorbikes with grenades are lurking to scare her to death at the alley. Simin runs back the way she went to look for Morteza. In fact, as a woman, she is forced to seek refuge with another man from men's terror, and if she had entered Morteza's life, it was because of a lack of security, not because of feminine or physical desire. In this regard, it should be said that although we do not see Ahoo in The Salesman, the signs (the most obvious of which are the paintings of her child on the wall) indicate that the previous infamous tenant was also a victim of poverty who, in any case, had a half-hearted relationship with the issue of family and wanted to feed her child. As a result, we are faced with conservative worlds where moral filters have blocked the path of female charm, while we can remember that Francis of Death of a Salesman is really a seductive woman and Schlöndorff did the best he could in his adaptation by choosing the actress for her role! It is as if Farhadi's camera's connection with "femininity" from the very first film has been severed by the blow of a mallet that Heidar/the father brings down to cut off the fingers of Nazar-Ali/the son. Nazar-Ali shouts at the heaven/camera and complains about his fate and the love that was denied to him. He is too immature to realize that salvation is not possible in this world; that happiness is forbidden to him. It is as if high angle shots that depict him as despicable and helpless in the midst of the salt marsh of despair are also the extract of the fate of people in Farhadi's later films. If the apparent flourishes of the crowded city life of the later films is removed, we will come to the rough and crude frames of Dancing in the Dust, to small and fragile creatures, abandoned in the heart of the desert, under the broad and cruel sky that does not love them and does not respond to their cries.