This realistic movie is one of the best films that show the truth of Iran society.

One of the most beautiful films of the year. It's a simple thing for Europeans. It's a common misunderstanding. But it is a great tragedy for Iran. Because a foreign man saw a woman naked. They are even embarrassed to tell the police.

As with other Asghar Farhadi movies, this movies is an authentic window into real life. You can empathize with every character. Every line of dialog is realistic. The acting is superb. The twists of the story are not forced, rather fit organically with the story and how the characters think and receive information. The subject matter makes it hard not to vilify the antagonist but Farhadi manages to do so by shedding light on their layered character and motives. Just as in real life, the people who do evil are not pure evil themselves.The realistic portrayal of the movie also makes watching the movie a self-exploration journey. You can't help but put yourself into the shoes of the characters and think what you would have done differently.

The Salesman" has a lot going for it, and I understand why the Academy voters felt good about honoring it with an Oscar. The drama is tense, and the morality is surely correct. Revenge is a blunter of other, more civilized emotions. I can't buy the whole package, however, because it doesn't fulfill its promise of matching the trauma within a contemporary urban marriage to the framing medium of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." I would have been content to follow the Iranian couple's drama alone, without the "clever" adjunct of the American classic, but since writer-director Farhadi draws such attention to Miller's play, I found myself constantly distracted by his misunderstanding of certain primary facets of that play.I realize several major critics, including A.O. Scott of the NY Times, have lauded how Farhadi uses "Death of a Salesman" to illuminate his tale of a modern rape and revenge--most of them laying stress on the "sales" aspect of one or more of the movie's characters who present a false facade to the world. Frankly, that's a very generalized reading, one idea plucked from the many themes at work in "The Salesman." To me, the only scene in Miller's play that connects with "The Salesman" is in Willy Loman's hotel room, when his son Biff learns that his dad has a hooker in the bathroom. To his credit, Farhadi shows that exact scene for a time, but this focus, while apt as far as it goes, overlooks the deeper side of Willy, that his entire life is devoted to a false idol, an illusion, the "American dream" of every salesman, of making one's way in the world "on a smile and a shoeshine." To Willy Loman, the only thing that matters on this earth is "to be well liked." Where does this factor into "The Salesman"? None of the characters exemplifies that jovial spirit, verbosity, and fake good humor that characterize the salesman type. I kept wondering why Farhadi kept referencing Miller's play while leaving this out. But then he doesn't seem to have studied the play, or he wouldn't have cast such a youthful "healthy" leading man to play Willy. Nor would any theater director have permitted Shahab Hosseini to play a 1940s American traveling salesman with that beard! (A more believable Willy might be the elderly rapist who appears later in the film, but we never learn much about him, and he's not playing the part for the theater troupe.)Both of the Lomans are miscast. They are nearly 30 years too young, a serious matter for characters with a lifelong devotion to the capitalist creed and a nearly paid-off mortgage. The makeup artists have to work overtime to try (unsuccessfully) to age them, drawing attention to another strange detail. Do Iranian actors not do their own makeup? I'm not speaking of pampered film stars, but of so-called "legit" actors. Western actors take it for granted that, except for highly unusual cosmetic effects, the actor is responsible for his/her own makeup. I wondered if this was a movie director's wrong assumption about stage practice.None of this absolutely ruins what is strong in this film. It is certainly worth our time to witness city life in contemporary Iran, even if it is a glum vision overall. The tautness of the one-on-one encounters is mesmerizing. You can't look away. In the interaction of husband and wife, one can see all the glaring omissions and missteps that doom the couple--and may save viewers many hours of marriage counseling.