Forushande (2016)

English title: The Salesman.

A couple has to move from their apartment because the building starts to fall apart. After a suggestion by a colleague of the husband, they move to a new one. A disagreeable incident occurs in there which provokes a crisis in their marriage.

Here is a film trying to be smart and failing in almost all counts. Although by the end of it what it is trying to say becomes reasonably clear, the paths it takes to say it are often puzzling. The most puzzling point for me was the whole subplot about the stuff the previous tenant left locked in their apartment. It is given an enormous emphasis which contrasts with the little to no bearing it has on what I perceived to be the main events of the movie. Maybe there is something here which is too subtle for my coarse sensibility. Aside from that, I am afraid that the film conveys a worldview which I do not espouse, and perhaps do not even understand. I call it defeatist, for lack of a better word. I was going to say weak, but I would be wrong, because I can sympathize with weakness, but never with defeatism. Looking back, I have the impression that this criticism might apply to The Separation as well, but I suspect the narrative there was fluid enough to trick me into liking it.

Rating: 40