Players on the Stage: Asghar Farhadi's 'The Salesman'

If all the world is a stage, then performance sits at the heart of our daily lives. Famed Iranian director Asghar Farhadi uses this conceit to deploy yet another astute piece of cinema – however contrived its plot – that highlights the conflicts and conundrums that arise from his homeland's persistent censorship and patriarchal culture, writes James Robert Douglas.

Additional keywords: misogyny, sexism, trauma, minimalism, crime, thriller, suspense, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman.