Oscar-nominated 'Salesman' a complex, empathetic tale

Even as Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi layers his films with complexity, his command of narrative is utterly total. You get the impression he could direct his way out of any labyrinth.

His latest, the Oscar-nominated "The Salesman," may not quite reach the heights of his best ("About Elly," the Academy Award-winning "A Separation"). But nothing in it will dissuade you from the feeling that you're in the hands of one of the finest filmmakers on the planet: a neorealist Hitchcock whose thrillers accrue a suspenseful force without a melodramatic score or pointed close-ups but through the accumulation of naturalistic detail.

Early in "The Salesman," a Tehran apartment building evacuates when cracks caused by neighboring construction shoot up its walls and windows. It's an early sign of the fissures that will drive through the domestic lives of its characters: a young couple named Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (the tremendous Taraneh Alidoosti, who also starred in "About Elly").

A friend finds them a new apartment where one room is still filled with the possessions of the previous tenant, a young woman. Both Emad (a teacher) and Rana are starring in a production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." Their neighbors, wary of the last occupant's carousing, are assured the new tenants are safer bets. "They're in culture," the friend says.

The play echoes through Farhadi's film in sometimes parallel, sometimes incongruous ways. Its classical drama is in stark contrast to the messier lives off stage. And its cultural connections can be strained. Rehearsing one scene, Rana wears a hijab when she's supposed to be naked, causing a co-star to break into laughter.

But Miller's themes of masculine shame and humiliation course throughout "The Salesman." When Emad runs out one evening from their new apartment, Rana is assaulted while taking a shower after leaving the door ajar for her husband.

The incident leaves her bloodied and shaken. Before fleeing, the assailant mistook her for the (never seen) previous tenant. Fearful of having to describe the attack, she refuses to go to the police. A neighbor suggests she would have her own questions to answer if she did.

Farhadi is playing with the societal roles that confine his characters, boxing them into their own private tragedies. Emad, increasingly enraged, hunts down the attacker who in his haste to escape leaves his car behind.

Eventually, "The Salesman" brings forth its own Willy Loman, a humble, elderly and guilt-ridden salesman played by an excellent Farid Sajjadi Hosseini. The steadily simmering drama leads to a chilling, protracted confrontation. As Farhadi's morality tale unwinds, though, our allegiances and sympathies bounce from one character to another.