The subtle dramatic thriller - About Elly

About Elly is directed by one of the most influential Iranian directors Asghar Farhadi. The film is about a group of Iranians, couples and families, set out to vacation at a seaside villa. One among them, a kindergarten teacher, mysteriously disappears on occasion as one of the children goes missing on the sea. It becomes a dreadful situation for the whole friends and family. The story moves on with the drama and mystery of how the friends and family face the problem. 

Here, director Asghar Farhadi makes his influence with the characters' senses and their inability to make decisions. The whole play is all about subtle performances where the actors express the character's nature on the common grounds of reality. The beauty of the film is simple location, mature performance from actors, sublime cinematography and unconventional screenplay. As an audience, we can easily connect with the expressions and opinions of the characters. Hossein Jafarian's cinematography hits the screens with its styles; mainly, the hand-held shots creates an urge that brings the rush of feelings into us. 

Asghar Farhadi's dramatic screenplay and filmmaking make the film sensible. The film didn't do overdramatic or over cinematic. It is just on the line, but it takes a short time to grab the audience's attention as the film takes a short walk over the process of glueing characters and their plots altogether. It takes time to get into the film but also I see it as the time to read the characters and their background to this story. The knots were predictable and straightforward, but Asghar Farhadi makes us watch the film, and that is where the brilliance of filmmaking gathers up. Golshifteh Farahani, in the role of Sepideh, does her work neatly and flawlessly. This character has two sides of the coin because the character can be clearly seen in two parts of emotions with its arc neatly developing and moulding. She fights for Elly and the honour of Elly, sacrificing her life to save the child from drowning. The story revolves around Elly, and Taraneh Alidoosti has done her part as commendable in the role. Elly does get around on the screen for merely thirty minutes, yet the absence of character is what the film is all about. 

Asghar Farhadi's style of filmmaking and handling human emotions are very natural and spotless. He points down directly at the conflicts between the characters with their highs and lows, which is undoubtedly the best projection of characterisation in Iranian Cinema. Unique writing skills and filmmaking techniques are required for that much courage to move the movie further without the character's presence; indeed, the character travels along with the other characters in the form of fear and ambiguity. We can feel one of them at the beginning of their happy conversation, and also, we suddenly become concerned when they roll down with the harsh circumstances.

The background score at the end is intense, and the frame shows all of them trying to push the car out from the beach sand - I understood something excruciating as they are trying hard to get out from the situation, which is rolling down their emotions.  

"The bitter end is much better than a bitterness without ending"