Iranian film "The Salesman" Written & Directed by Asghar Farhadi

Iranian film director/writer Asghar Farhadi (b Iran 1972) received the Oscar for best Foreign Language Film "A Separation" (2011) marking the 1st time an Iranian filmmaker has received this honor.  "The Salesman" (2016) is a political & family drama.  It incorporates Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman," in its storytelling.  The movie has received an Oscar nom for this year's Best Foreign Language Film.  Farhadi has stated he plans to boycott the Oscars in protest of Pres Trump's immigration policies.  Farhadi depicts fissures in Iranian life:  the 2nd class citizenship of women & imposed censorship in Iran.  The film begins with the emergency evacuation of an aptmt building that is on the verge of collapsing.  A young married couple, Rana & Emad are forced to find lodgings quickly as a result.  Emad is a high school literature teacher in an all male classroom.  He's teaching Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (no one in his class was familiar with it.)  Simultaneously, he is in a production of the play.  Emad plays Willie Lohman & his wife Rana is Willie's long suffering wife.  The parables align with disillusionment with one's spouse and one's own life.  The movie is clever but also very dark & oppressive.  Rana is brutally assaulted while alone in their temporary lodgings.  She is physically & emotionally shaken but it is Emad who turns his frustration & pain into vengeance.  He is relentless in the pursuit of his wife's attacker.  It's shocking that women (even victims of sexual abuse) are considered culpable yet men are granted leniency with their sexual behaviors towards women.  Notifying the police is abhorrent to Rana & her neighbors.  When Emad discovers the guilty party, he invokes his own vigilante justice which is disturbing & horrifying.  "The Salesman" is a piercing look at contemporary restrictive norms in Iran and the disillusionment & dissolution of a marriage.  "The Salesman" may earn another Oscar for its ingenious filmmaker, Farhadi.  I admire his talents as a writer/director filmmaker & his political convictions.