Distancing Effect and Identification of the Audience in the Film Salesman by Asghar Farhadi and Based on the Views of Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht wanted the theater to become a forum for dialogue rather than a platform for delusions, and to develop a new concept of theater creativity known as "Westernization" or "APEC Theater" which aims to stimulate the cash circle in the spectator's mind. This concept is based on the idea of "making what is strange" and this turns it into a poetic act. Brecht intended, from this concept, to extract emotion from theatrical production and to distance the viewer from the characters of the play and the actors' departure from their roles, and then the truth becomes easier to understand. Asghar Farhadi is considered one of the most important Iranian film directors, and he is one of the few who owns a style of their own, and The Salesman  is one of his most important films as we in this article seek to show the way this film took in order to find positive and interactive viewers through two main axes: characters and their conversations as well as direction. Here we can see the way the audience is formed. By extrapolating this film with the opinions of Brecht, and the reasons for the influence of the film "Froshendeh" or Salesman, on the audience, it will be analyzed through the concept of divergence and identification. It seems that Farhadi like Brecht uses the same indirect methods, to reach effective and active viewer and forcing the audience to think. But, of course, Farhadi's style does not contradict the audience's identification with the characters of the film, in addition to creating a special and modern type of divergence in his own way through camera movements, decoration, decoupage, film framing, and narrative. Because in the present era with ordinary subjects and a normal treatment of the story, this does not force the viewer to think.