"About Elly" - a sensitive and realistic exploration of Human psyche

"About Elly" - a sensitive and realistic exploration of Human psyche

There are two ways of looking at Art. It could either be an aspiration that reaches out to an ideal, or it could represent itself as close to reality as possible. In both cases, an audience undergoes a catharsis, a non-verbal tingle that courses through one’s body causing suspension of opinion and merging into the piece of art itself. All of us have had such moments: When one sees the Taj from a distance, or stand in awe of Michalengo’s tapestry at Sistine chapel, or puzzled by Picasso’s stark realism, or dissolve into Mozart sublime harmonics, or soar along with pure tonal notes of Lata Mangaeskar, or stand mesmerized in the magnificence of Ten commandments; or meditate over Akira Kurosowa’s philosophic ruminations on screen, or mingle with the sublimity of Shakespearean prose and wordsworthian poetry, or humbled by the majesty of Gibbon’s history or Durant’s narration - all these are examples of moments that transport Man to an higher state of intellectual and emotional living that makes Art what it is – an undefinable entity, yet so real and fulfilling..

As an avid student of Films, nothing gives me more pleasure than coming across, every now and then, a gem that defies all conventional rules and boundaries of movie making and the ability to sustain viewer’s unconditional interest for two hours. I don’t care what language the movie is made in, or whether I know the actors and artists involved. In fact, I prefer not to know anything before I see a movie, or read a book or listen to a piece of music. Unlike many who wouldn’t care to do anything without a positive review on the internet, I believe in reaching my own judgments on matters of art and literature. It was with this attitude that I sat down to watch “About Elly”, an Iranian movie on Netflix last Sunday. It was recently added to Netflix, and I knew Asghar Farhadi, the director by name. He had won an Academy award and a Golden globe in 2012 for his film “A separation”. Beyond this, this movie was a mystery to me.

The films opens with three families and a male friend (Ahmad), who has just returned from Germany after a messy divorce, driving out to a beach (on the Caspian Sea) for a weekend break. Sepideh, one of the married ladies in the group brings along a lady friend (Elly) with the idea of getting Ahmad interested in her. She is a teacher at the school in Tehran where her young boy studies, and seems a pleasant, good looking girl. The first forty five minutes of the movie is stark realism, with nothing more than fun, laughter, and innocent games within the group. There is a sense of superficial happiness and loose talk, innuendoes captured beautifully by Farhadi. The constant din of the Caspian Sea in the background, the chilly winds that waft through broken windows of the house create an atmosphere of warm coziness mingled with a foreboding sense of impending mishap. And very soon, tragedy follows. Elly disappears in an effort to save a child from drowning, and the natural conclusion reached by the group is that she has drowned in the turbulent waters of the sea( Whether this is true or not, the movie unravels as it rolls). At this point, the story takes a turn as new facts about Elly come to light. Nothing extraordinary, but ordinary revelations that would seem commonplace in the lives of almost anyone. Clash of emotions, opinions, judgments and an effort to make sense and reason of an unfortunate incident that nobody really masterminded, sends the movie into a vortex of debate over ethics, morality and justice. The end is shocking. Not in the sense of a Hitchcockian murder mystery, but shocking in terms of conclusion reached by the protagonists in the drama. Does murder need always to be a physical act, or is it enough that a momentary lapse of decency can be tantamount to murder? Possibly not in the tunneled eyes of law; but debatable if weighed in the moral scales of civilized Human beings.

“About Elly” is an intense drama. It is a movie that one cannot causally watch. Like reading a book of literary fiction written in a stream of consciousness style, every nuance, every gesture needs participation from the viewer, and very soon they find themselves in the thick of things. Shot in single location with disregard to exaggerated histrionics, Farhadi manages to bring in vivid sense of realism into this work. Would I want to classify this as an “Art” film? The answer would have to be No. The film definitely kicks off at a slow pace, but very quickly gathers inner momentum like a stream that becomes suddenly becomes turbulent as it reaches the end of its journey. And what is so striking and philosophically deep for me is the backdrop of the sea with its rough undulating waves constantly washing the shores; relentless in its onslaught; unmindful of the pitiful little human drama of innocuous social conventions being played out nearby – almost mocking the needless complexities of civilized Human life.

Middles eastern films are like French movies. They are artistic, and tend to explore Human psyche in all its dimensions, and like many other niceties they are for those who desire their entertainment to be sublime and at the same time aesthetically consummating. I wouldn’t recommend this anyone who wishes to sit in front of a television or a screen only to allow images flit by without any self-conscious participation. They would either get bored in the first ten minutes, or walk away watching the film without an iota of appreciation. After I finished watching, I read up on this movie; and I was overwhelmed by the kind of response true movie enthusiasts have given this work. Rightfully so, in an age when literary merit is fast becoming a rare commodity, such gems are to be nourished and nurtured. Roger Ebert - one of the finest critics in the business gives this a 4/4. I have never seen him rate many works as high as this. And in his review, Ebert quotes Farhadi vision of Film making, and I cannot agree with him more. He says

“…Rather than asserting a world vision, a film must open a space in which the public can involve themselves in a personal reflection, and evolve from consumers to independent thinkers.”

Independent thinkers - that is the key phrase. The modern world has made us into mechanical consumers from everything from a pen to a car to a spouse. We walk as robots dashing against one contrivance to another without pausing to independently think, decide and act on choices. We are, whether we like it or not, consumers of emotions for self-gratification; and when our sacred cocoon of happiness and decency is threatened we wouldn’t mind trading our entire value system for something that is antithetical to what we believed in before. And that is the inner space Farhadi explores in this fascinating drama.

Pls watch it, if movies mean anything at all beyond sensory titillation and mind numbing extravaganzas.

God bless…

Yours in mortality,

Bala