The Past Movie Review

Further cementing himself as Iran’s (or anywhere’s) best director of taut human drama, Asghar Farhadi gives us an excellent follow up to A Separation, the film that won the Oscar for Foreign Language Film and made many critics’ top ten lists (including my own) two years ago. The Past is a masterful display of a great writer at work. Starting from the classical position of staging drama in a condensed period of time, it takes place over a handful of days during which enough secrets, emotions, and hidden motivations are revealed to fill a couple more movies.

A Separation Movie Review: Best Movie of 2011

Newton’s Third Law of Motion tells us that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton was referring to the physical world, but it would seem that something similar is at work in the metaphysical world as well. For every action we take as individuals, even when it’s a personal and private action that seems to only affect ourselves, somewhere someone else receives some reaction to it. Maybe that’s true. I really don’t know. But the idea that lives are intertwined with neighbors and family, that decisions have far-reaching implications beyond immediate gratification is the central theme of Asghar Farhadi’s brilliant family drama A Separation.

About Elly (Darbareye Elly) Movie Review

Update 4/9/15: At long last this film has found a release and distribution in the United States, thanks to the success of Farhadi's two most recent films, A Separation and The Past.

This review was written when I saw the film during its theatrical release in Spain in May 2010. I held off posting it in the event it was ever given a North American release. Although it played several small festivals around the US, it doesn't look like it will find distribution over there.

So I post this review here for the first time.

Don’t be fooled by the title, which I assume is intended as ironic. By the time the end credits roll on About Elly (Darbareye Elly), an intimate Iranian film from writer-director Asghar Farhadi, you are not likely to know a whole lot more about Elly than you did at the start. That’s not entirely true, actually. You’ll know more about her, but the information provided is hardly illuminating.