Procurando Elly

You can't breathe, you can not even shout, you can not cry, you'll be just stay fascinated till the end and the final music is just as fantastic as the whole movie itself; The roles are played by some of the best actors and actresses of Iran, who actually LIVE the roles and you just get engaged with everything that's going on there as if you are one of them; I loved it so much; Thanks to Asghar Farhadi for always making us such good movies; I do recommend everyone to see this if the haven't yet; I'm gonna see it again for sure....... I really love the scene where the sound of Eli gets mixed with the cruel sound of Sea which really makes you nervous; gives some notices about the upcoming events;

Long breath taking shots. Perfect crew. Fantastic location. Sharpe and best cinematography & screenplay.

I pause when Taraneh Alidoosti flying kite. Unknowingly, I got some thrilling feeling. the screenplay, background music, camera and she brought me to like it was real and I was in front of sea to watching it. I took long breath to realise it was movie.

I feel that I was connected to film that is The director's touch and won the audience.

It is My second Iranian film and it changed everything about Iran. I missed lot. I plan to watch more film from various director.

Really It is great one, everyone must watch.

To say the most important thing first: 'All about Elly' requires unmitigated attention from the viewer. I actually watched it in the Berlin Festival last year, but didn't think too much of it as I was distracted. Since it won the Silver Bear and was voted by Iranian critics the best national film ever, I decided to give it another shot on DVD, and as it works sometimes, I realized that this film is not only a true gem, but one of those rare, timeless classics that may help to explain to posterity the reality of generations past.

What lulled me into a mistaken sense of boredom upon my first viewing was the unassuming start of the film. The simplicity of the plot - a group of young Tehrani couples going on a seaside weekend trip, with one of the wives trying to act as a matchmaker between a female colleague and an expat on vacation from Germany - is presented in such low-key fashion that if you don't know what's coming (and I didn't) it's hard to focus on the subtle hints of possible conflict. Also, while I've been to Iran and consider myself vaguely familiar with the complexities of life there, of course as a mere visitor you can catch but a fraction of what things mean, and since this is very much a jump into an unknown society, you really have to blank your mind to catch the drift of what the characters say.

Ironically, that's a stark contradiction to the usual Iranian festival fair: Kiarostami works a lot with metaphor (which he often endlessly repeats to drive the message home), Panahi with situation developments (which he exploits to the utmost degree to drive the message home), and therefore their works do not require much background info, though it sure helps. Farhadi's film asks for a bit more audience participation, as much of the conflict in the second half of the film stems from Iranian social reality, I would think. That is what, on my second viewing, convinces me of the timeless quality of this film: never before have I seen a director pull so much substance out of so little plot and setting.

Just because 'All about Elly' appears to be simple at first, it is actually really deep; once I suspected that every frame in this film means something and is not just there, I entered an alternate visual language, which then communicated the urgency of what Elly's disappearance meant to me. I felt that this film thereby manages to tell me emotionally what I could rationally never fully comprehend: what it means to actually live in a country like that. No other film from Iran has ever done that for me, and I've rarely seen a film from another culture that managed to do so. So I would assume that Farhadi has taken directing to another level here.

What's more: this isn't just a very artistic way to convey a message, it's also very entertaining. For once I was drawn into the characters, their sense of alarm and suspense kept me on the edge until the very end. There's a decent dose of Hitchcock in 'All about Elly' as unreal as that may sound. That's the real charm of this film: although it's demanding in terms of familiarity with the setting, it's international in its depiction of emotions anyone from anywhere can relate to.

In conclusion: Definitely not to be missed if you are just as much as remotely interested in Iran, or have a sweet tooth for excellent direction (though the French term 'mise-en-scène' hits the mark in this case). This is the kind of movie that should become part the curriculum of film students around the globe.

I came to see Farhadi's flick at Kerala Film Festival. It Won the best picture award Golden Chakoram there. Farhadi's sketch human interactions are so lucid. How humans react to chaos and how the manipulative nature of humans come into act in time of difficulties is clearly depicted in this film. It reveals a true fact about the body of lies used by ordinary people in their ordinary lives. We lie thousand times a week. When we are thinking about manipulations, its not only about the conspiracies by the big power houses. In fact the root of all those are present in common man. About Elly beautifully depicts how common man, including women and children uses lies and these body of lies causes to make relevant impact on their lives in changing situations.Even though film creates a tense atmosphere of chaos caused by the disappearance of Elly, at one stage delegates started laughing during the screening.Farhadi's little picture even created a satirical approach on how man makes things complicated with his manipulations. On the whole it is a good introspective into the real human nature...

There are no words to explain this masterpiece. Keeps you busy for a few days, makes you think about it, and just leaves you in awe.

The film starts with a simple plot, and ends with much more simplicity. Farhadi proves to be a real master in storytelling. He is believed to be one of the best script writers in Iran. But now he seems to be alone on top, far from his other fellow cinematographers.

The cast is great, but so is the director. No other Iranian movie has ever been as smart as About Elly in directing the actors and putting the viewer inside the locations of the film, between the act and close to the story. The camera acts as one of the key elements in the movie and the story. Without even a single note of music, and making good use of spectacular dialogs, the 2 hour journey will come to an end in a shocking way.

About Elly was honored the best film by Iranian film critics, with a sweeping 17 from 19 votes.