The Salesman Movie Review: Another Universal Drama From Asghar Farhadi

Photo: imdb.com

Writing movie reviews is completely new to me. However, my deep appreciation of Iranian cinema and its growing popularity in other countries have motivated me to give it a try. I`ve decided to start with one of the most recent and well-known Iranian movies - The Salesman. 

The latest film of world-famous, award-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi called The Salesman was a sensation at Cannes Film Festival last year winning two awards (Best Screenplay and Best Actor). The Salesman managed to win several other awards and is now running for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. It is Farhadi`s seventh feature film which tells the story of a married couple Emad and Rana who suffer a violent intrusion into their private life - while alone at home, Rana accidentally lets in a man who breaks her life with Emad into pieces. The title of the film is inspired by Arthur Miller`s play Death of a Salesman which the film is partially based. Reading this play before watching the movie will definitely help to understand it better.

Tehran Events Guide: December 15-21

In Tehran Events Guide I`m introducing exhibitions, movies (in English, of course), concerts, festivals and other happenings that might interest you so that you won`t have to check multiple websites to decide where to go at the weekend! Tehran doesn`t have night life, but it doesn`t mean there is nothing to do here! So get ready to go out this weekend!

Tehran Events Guide: Cinematheques in Tehran

Maybe it will be big news for some of you, but in Iranian cinemas you can watch ONLY Iranian movies. A couple of years ago a recently built shopping center Kourosh with 14 (!) cinema halls started showing some new Hollywood movies every now and then, but, unfortunately, it didn`t last long. Now foreign movie screenings are limited to cinematheques which have, however, become quite popular in Tehran. Their number is growing and there are more and more opportunities to watch a brand-new Hollywood movie or a good old European film. While some cinematheques show the retrospective of one director (like Museum of Contemporary Art) or relate their screenings to different books (like Charsou Cinema), others show a mix of old and new movies not related to each other (like Kourosh Cinema).

Tehran Events Guide: December 8-14

In Tehran Events Guide I`m introducing exhibitions, movies (in English, of course), concerts, festivals and other happenings that might interest you so that you won`t have to check multiple websites to decide where to go at the weekend! This weekend is going to be packed with interesting events happening in Tehran! 

Tehran Events Guide: November 24-30

One of the problems I had during these five years living in Tehran is that it is really hard to find out about different cultural events in Tehran. The situation with event promotion and informing is just horrible here. So many times I missed great events and found out about them from a friend who took part in them. Sometimes I found out about an event a day before or even the same day! In many countries there are online or paper magazines which promote various concerts, exhibitions, movies or other cultural things. Finally, if you don`t follow them, you can check the website of specific cinema, theater of gallery. Well, in Iran it`s different. There are no magazines like Time Out that can help choose where to go out this weekend, websites are outdated. Of course, Iranians are really trying to change the situation and invite more and more people to their events using social networks and distributing free brochures listing various exhibitions, but they have a long way to go.

But I have good news for you! From now on I will publish an events guide every week which I really hope will keep you updated and make going out easier for you! In this section I`ll be telling about exhibitions, movies (in English, of course), concerts, festivals and other happenings that might interest you so that you won`t have to check multiple websites to decide where to go at the weekend!