Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman added to Cannes Competition

The upcoming Cannes Film Festival has added a few more titles to its officials sections, and this has been the practice since the past few years. Earlier, Cannes never did this, sticking to its original selection that is invariably announced 21 days before the festival begins.

One of the movies that has been added to the prestigious Competition is the renowned Iranian auteur, Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman. With this addition, the Competition will have 21 titles in a festival that runs from May 11 to 22. The Salesman revolves around a couple whose relationship turns violent because of societal pressures.

Long-time Farhadi collaborators, Taraneh Alidoosti -- who played the eponymous role in About Elly -- and Shahab Hosseini -- who appeared in Farhadi’s Berlin Golden Bear and Oscar-winning A Separation -- co-star as the warring couple.

Read: Cannes 2016 | No Indian film makes it to the film festival

Farhadi, who last came to Cannes in 2013 with his The Past, seems to be specialising in marital rift. This writer saw A Separation thrice, and seemed never to get tired of it, primarily for two reasons. It is brilliant cinematically -- profound performances, an unobtrusive camera and splendid editing that made one just sink into the lives of the characters. Two, Farhadi is so damn critical of Iranian society, but in such a covert way that the mullahs could not just figure it out. This is what one calls a punch that lands on your face, and you do not even see it coming or even perhaps feel the hurt. That is what masterful cinema is all about, saying all you want to, but in a controlled and dignified manner.

Read: Anurag Kashyap’s next on a serial killer is getting a Cannes screening

Farhadi’s tale of marital discord slips into the private chambers of a married couple, squabbling over their own future and that of their only daughter.

And Farhadi does this through a neat story whose dramatis personae seem to be tearing apart age-old beliefs and tradition without anybody even realising it. They appear to be writing with invisible ink, the letters waiting to emerge after a hot iron passes over them.

Farhadi’s tale of marital discord slips into the private chambers of a married couple, squabbling over their own future and that of their only daughter. In the film, the wife wants to divorce her husband, because he refuses to immigrate with her and their daughter to America. She says the little girl will have a bright future there, far away from Iran’s suffocating conservatism and religious animosity. He does not want to go, because his Alzheimer’s afflicted father needs his son, and more than him, his daughter-in-law. The couple’s daughter, aged 11 or 12, wants all of them, certainly her parents. And, when the wife leaves, the husband hires a maid, piously religiously and with a husband whose debtors are hounding him. Finally, when they all meet in court, they try taking refuge in lies and deceit.

Farhadi’s The Past is also beautifully written, crafted and acted out movie. The Past, much like A Separation is about family and children. Both paint wonderful portraits of how relationships among screwed-up adults affect children - and deeply.

Read: Japanese helmer Naomi Kawase to head Short Films Jury at Cannes

Farhadi, who last came to Cannes in 2013 with his The Past, seems to be specialising in marital rift.

Although The Past is not as intense or griping as A Separation, Farhadi’s Cannes player is nonetheless a disturbing picture of how modern families grow dysfunctional. What is also missing in The Past are the rather convoluted Iranian judicial, political and religious systems, for the film is set in Paris, unlike A Separation whose story unfolds in Tehran.

In A Certain Regard, the extremist drama, Clash, from Egyptian director Mohamed Diab, will open the section. The movie plays out against the violent demonstrations which erupted at the end of former president Mohamed Morsi’s reign, Diab examines extremism through an intense drama where two fiercely rival groups find themselves in the same police van!

Also part of A Certain Regard will be British helmer David Mackenzie’s prison drama, Starred Up -- about a divorced man and a once convict brother who resort to desperate schemes to save their family farm in Texas.

Among the additions to the Midnight and Special Screenings will be the Mel Gibson-starer, Blood Father, where an ex-convict tries to save his 16-year-old daughter from murderous drug dealers.