Indie Gems: The Salesman

-
Therapy all around.

Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) are a married couple in Tehran who are forced to evacuate their apartment. While performing "Death of a Salesman" on stage, one of their castmates offers them a temporary apartment where the previous tenant had lots of visitors. When Rana is assaulted by one of these visitors, Emad struggles with wanting to go after that person and trying to understand how to support Rana through this trauma.

Director Asghar Farhadi impressed (and infuriated me) in 2011 with A Separation so I was happy to see him getting Oscar attention again for this again. He crafts fascinating character studies. At times it's hard to watch Rana and Emad navigate the murky waters of PTSD. You want them to go to group therapy together and just LISTEN to each other, but it's never that simple.

Farhadi and Alidoosti are great in their roles. The film handles the assault very delicately and nothing graphic is shown or explained. This made it an easier watch for me considering how awful I usually handle that subject matter. 

Grade: B

Watched on: Netflix DVD

Memorable Quote: "I thought it was you." - Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti)

Comments

  1. BirgitJuly 7, 2017 at 11:52 AM

    This film sounds highly intelligent and very thoughtful regrading the assault. I remember watching The Accused and there was no reason for the explicit rape scene to be shown. We knew what she experienced without that show which I felt damaged the film. Your review makes me want to see this film.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJuly 7, 2017 at 1:31 PM

      Ugh fuck the Accused. That's a text book example of not treating your traumatic scene well. That felt exploitative.

      Delete
  2. thevoid99July 7, 2017 at 3:42 PM

    I do want to see this as I'm a fan of Farhadi's work as I really did like A Separation (which my parents also enjoyed) as well as The Past.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RuthJuly 10, 2017 at 9:03 PM

    I can't believe I still haven't seen A Separation! This one got me really intrigued as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 12, 2017 at 1:22 PM

    Oh yeah, I still need to see this! I chased it at Oscar time but could never get it done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJuly 13, 2017 at 6:37 AM

      It came nowhere near me during Oscar season. Story of my life with the Foreign nominees.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Indie Gems: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

-
Image
Passionate about your profession? I had never heard of this film until it ended up on one of Jason's favorite horror movie lists around Halloween. It immediately sounded interesting to me, so of course I threw it in my Netflix queue. (and if I'm just now watching it after adding it around Halloween, you know how ridiculous my queue is) Taylor (Angela Goethals) is a journalist who, along with a film crew decides to follow around a serial killer named Leslie Vernon. (Nathan Baesel) He plans on doing the typical slasher thing - getting a bunch of drunk teens in an abandoned house and knocking them off one by one. He gets advice from a retired serial killer, Eugene (Scott Wilson) and is threatened by a man who's on to him, Doc Holloran (Robert Englund) Taylor and crew are there capturing it all. Leslie Vernon is fucking hilarious to start with, and clearly very passionate about what he does. He tells Taylor all of his secrets and can barely contain his excitemen...
Read more

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels

-
Image
Starting around 2018, I started watching Youtube for more than just movie trailers or music videos whenever a new one dropped. Now I'm in full blown subscription mode and don't bat an eyelash at watching a Youtube video that's over an hour long. I watch Youtube for a few different categories of content, but one of them that I love most is movie/TV essays and commentary, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. Below is a list of my favorite movie related Youtube channels. Let me know if you're familiar with them too, or if you have any you'd like to recommend to me.  Double Toasted - I'm honestly surprised this channel isn't bigger. I first came across Korey and Martin when they reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes a few months before it hit theaters and I thought they were hysterical. While their full length videos stream on Twitch, they often upload their movie reviews and commentary on youtube and they're always hilarious. They've...
Read more