ABOUT ELLY (Iranian) (2009)

‘A bitter end is much better than a bitterness without ending.’

My second Asghar Farhadi film and I must say that the man had already made an intense and moving human drama with an equal amount of surprise and twist and introspection much before winning multiple awards for ‘A Separation’ last year. It opens with arrival of four couples and kids to spare three days holiday. They didn’t get the house committed earlier but after a bargain they managed to get an old house on seashore. What we noticed is that there’s no relationship between one of the couple. The man is divorcee and the lady named Elly is a guest convinced by the one of the lady. Its wishful thinking of her to set them as a pair but the guest lady is quite reserved with the group. We see her in few embarrassing situation or in a mood as if she’s not supposed to belong here. They played pantomime and actively played their parts with responsibility.  And then suddenly an accident occurred followed by another. They survived by the first but the later was remained an unsolved mystery. Was Elly really drowned or disappeared? What we see next is intriguing and swinging human drama shifting between situational and emotional fix and surprising twist played between characters.

It’s simple plot and yet how engagingly Farhadi built the whole intricacy of drama with its complexity that continues for almost two hours without boring or unnecessarily pulling moments! The emotional crux of drama comes in last ten minutes of that personal meeting between two protagonists, that changes the whole perspective of the film. that one close ended question and that answer of mere yes or no left the film’s ending an altogether subtle end with a guilt hard to bear. How delicately Farhadi handles the drama so naturally and it instantly connects to any viewer irrespective of his cultural roots or nationality without any extra effort just like his award winning ‘A Separation’. Most of that made possible by characters. Once again the ensemble cast of almost all Iranian actors performed so naturally their with a special mention of Golshifteh Farhani who played Sepideh, Shahab Hosseini and Payman Maadi. Infact all actors performed their characters so naturally; after watching each Iranian film, I keep wondering, ‘Are all Iranian actors born with that gift of or what!’

The film won Silver Berlin Bear at Berlin Film festival.

Must watch.

Ratings-9/10