Darbareye Elly (2009) AKA About Elly

About Elly, which is only just receiving its theatrical release in the United States, is a kind of modern-day adaptation of that most quintessential of existential dramas, Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura; right down to Golshifteh Farahani in the Monica Vitti role. The plot itself is more or less the same, a group of bourgeois friends go vacationing with the intention of trying to hook-up their divorced friend Ahmad, returned from Germany for a visit home, with a kindergarten teacher, only for the kindergarten teacher to mysteriously disappear, leading to an acute breakdown and unraveling of their relationships. But the similarities end there. About Elly is a far more visceral work, less operatic and more in-your-face. Farhadi gets right up into his character's faces, his camera constantly mobile. The sounds of the waves loop in the background, creating an atmosphere of unease. There are moments of near-hypnotic tension. About Elly also reflects on Iran's fractured and troubled political consciousness; Farhadi tears to shreds the image of the westernized Iranian bourgeoisie, who believe they are rebelling by sneaking off together and buying expensive Gucci purses while still clinging to a reactionary morality. These are the people, who in 1979, fearful of losing their power and privileges, supported the Ayatollah Khomeini in his rise to power. Yet, something about the finished product doesn't quite gel together. It almost feels too polished, and it lacks the truly raw power seen in, for example, the films of Jafar Panahi. On a purely narrative level, Farhadi does away with most forms of exposition, dropping the viewer right into the proceedings, leaving one to figure out who's who, and in a film with so many characters, this is problematic. So much of the film is rooted in specificity; a specific period in a specific place, that it will easily become dated within a decade or so, especially as the Islamic regime in Iran continues to collapse under its own contradictions. But as a record of an era, it is an interesting one.