The Salesman – 8

(fuller review TK). Real-world cinema, in this case from Iran: no special effects, no histrionics, just real people facing real situations, making choices that the viewer can admire or criticize. In other words, we are drawn into director TK’s vision and made to question our own feelings and reactions. Here, notably, we admire the lead male for his sensitivity, forbearance, skill with his pupils and ability to hold it all together; while we lose sympathy with his wife, despite her rape, as she is unable to move on and stop burdening those around her. And then our sympathies shift. For every character we see the good and the bad. And we recognize that here, as in life, there is no black and white, only many shades of grey that blend into one another, for better and worse.