In 1978, the Vinod Mehra - Rekha movie, Ghar, was said to be ahead of its time for depicting rape and its consequence on marriage. There too, two people move into a new apartment for a new start but their lives are brought to a grinding halt when the wife is gang-raped and the husband is left scrambling for answers.
The Salesman briefly reminds you of Ghar, but quickly moves into unexplored territories. Here, the attack takes place within the house. Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) is waiting for her husband to return home and casually unlocks the door for him before going into the loo to wash up. An unseen intruder breaks into the house and molests Rana. Her husband Emad (Shahab Hosseini) hears about the incident, and it opens the doors to a patriarchal sense of rage in him that he seemed to have locked away.
The movie delivers on all the expectations one has come to attach with Asghar Farhadi's work. Like his previous breakout, A Separation, this is also a highly volatile story contained within the four walls of a house. No option for the characters but to bounce off the walls!
( 4.5 / 5 )