About Elly
Written & Directed by: Asghar Farhadi
Silver Bear for Best Director at 59th Berlin International Film Festival
Asghar Farhadi's films if described in one line, will sound simple; the inciting incident sounds simple but the layers which he presents in that incident are so complex that by each layer and detail he adds to the incident, your senses of who is right and who is wrong will be lost. The best part about his films is that he doesn't judge his characters, he writes them from a neutral view and justifies every character's every action. This film's inciting incident comes at more than half an hour into the film, till then he establishes the world of the characters, the mood they are in. He doesn't use any music in this film as well like his other films, but here there is constant ambiance sound of the sea waves. His filmography fits into most of the guidelines of the film movement Dogme 95, as far as I can recall.
If you think you are good with judging who's right and who's wrong in a given situation, I wish you good luck before you watch Asghar Farhadi's films. In this film, the question is why did she come with them if she was engaged, since it is based in Iran we don't know the cultural context as much, but it is suggested that she dishonored her commitment to the engagement. But does she? This is what happens in real life, it is easy to label something which happened into a statement, which is what news/Inshorts does but what actually happened and more than everything if you were in the perpetrator's shoes what would you have done? Asghar Farhadi in an interview said that he writes a synopsis with his heart and then uses his mind to go about the detailing of the events, I think it is impossible to create that ambiguity in the film if not for the detailing where, every new information that gets added challenges your entire view of what's happened.
As I watched this after watching A Separation and The Salesman, it felt like a reunion of all the actors going back in time; mainly Shadab Hosseini and Peyman Moaadi. Although this film doesn't have as much tension going on, as A Separation did; I'm not complaining about this but here the event had more scope for tension than the other films. Also maybe since there are a lot of characters in this film, I couldn't differentiate much between them in terms of their behavior and mannerisms as much as I did in A Separation. It is not fair to compare this film with his later films, but I can't help but think of them because his films are so unique in terms of the setting, portraying the socio-cultural milieu and the craft. I used to look at David Fincher films in that way, all of his films are so different from other films that when I binge watched his work it was difficult for me to watch other work because I got used to the smooth pans and film making with such finesse. Similarly, with Asghar Farhadi's films the tension that he carries throughout, in this film after the inciting incident is something that even some action films don't achieve.
If you think you are good with judging who's right and who's wrong in a given situation, I wish you good luck before you watch Asghar Farhadi's films. In this film, the question is why did she come with them if she was engaged, since it is based in Iran we don't know the cultural context as much, but it is suggested that she dishonored her commitment to the engagement. But does she? This is what happens in real life, it is easy to label something which happened into a statement, which is what news/Inshorts does but what actually happened and more than everything if you were in the perpetrator's shoes what would you have done? Asghar Farhadi in an interview said that he writes a synopsis with his heart and then uses his mind to go about the detailing of the events, I think it is impossible to create that ambiguity in the film if not for the detailing where, every new information that gets added challenges your entire view of what's happened.
As I watched this after watching A Separation and The Salesman, it felt like a reunion of all the actors going back in time; mainly Shadab Hosseini and Peyman Moaadi. Although this film doesn't have as much tension going on, as A Separation did; I'm not complaining about this but here the event had more scope for tension than the other films. Also maybe since there are a lot of characters in this film, I couldn't differentiate much between them in terms of their behavior and mannerisms as much as I did in A Separation. It is not fair to compare this film with his later films, but I can't help but think of them because his films are so unique in terms of the setting, portraying the socio-cultural milieu and the craft. I used to look at David Fincher films in that way, all of his films are so different from other films that when I binge watched his work it was difficult for me to watch other work because I got used to the smooth pans and film making with such finesse. Similarly, with Asghar Farhadi's films the tension that he carries throughout, in this film after the inciting incident is something that even some action films don't achieve.
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