Anyone who is a fan of Oscar winning A Separation, and the work of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi will want to see About Elly. It is a masterclass in both storytelling and film making. Farhadi is a multi-award winning director and not without reason; one of those reasons is his brilliance in the art of deception and illusion. He has the gift of deceiving us into believing we are watching a simple slice of Iranian life but all the while he is planting seeds that will grow and eventually come to maturity and fruition in the most unexpected and enlightened of ways.

About Elly, superficially at least, is a story about a group of 30 something middle class Iranians, who together with their children take a 3 day break from life in Tehran to travel north up to the Caspian Sea for some sun, fun and relaxation. Unbeknown to the main group trip organizer, Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) has been playing matchmaker. She plans on introducing her daughters apparently singleton teacher Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti) a stranger to the main group, to the recently divorced Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini).

What is striking from the opening scenes is the tremendous unity and strength within the group which cannot be shaken even when they are informed the accommodation is double booked. Trip organizer Sepideh resolves the issue by gaining the sympathy of to the site owners with a little white lie, explaining that Elly and Ahmad are newlyweds and the group are then offered alternative arrangements.

Spirits are high and the friends democratically vote to accept the offer of the apartment and then decide amongst themselves who will be responsible for cleaning as the new apartment is unkempt and in desperate need of a clean. This setback is only a minor inconvenience and serves to increase the togetherness and harmony of the group. The togetherness of the group is further strengthened with the sharing of the main meal and participation of all in an after dinner game of Charades.

The apparent harmony is short lived when the very next morning an unforeseen incident sets about a dynamic that will tear the tranquility and cohesion of the group apart. What has on the surface appeared to be a straightforward even simple tale of a group of friends on a short holiday quickly evolves into a tale of mystery, tragedy, conspiracy, hope and despair now set against a backdrop of the higher and more culturally important issues of morality and honor.

For anyone not too familiar with Iran and its culture, outside of TV newsreels, like myself, About Elly will challenge any assumptions you may have about life in a modern theocratic Iran. Yes, there is a deep regard for spiritual life and the clear divide between men and women remains. There are a couple of powerful examples within the film which highlight this same point. The first is when Sepideh risks her own life by diving into the sea in full dress including hijab. It is noticeable the young boy removes his tee shirt to go bared top without a second glance. The second is when the group are debating and judging the good name of Elly within the context of morality and honor. There clearly is more than a hint of a suggestion that it is perhaps better for a woman to be dead than suffer dishonor.

At the same time, Farhadi gives us more than enough glimpses that the times are a changing for at least some middle class women. The very democratic nature of the group. Women challenging their husband’s decisions, making decisions not solely on the basis of child rearing and domesticity. Within this liberal group there is no call to prayer 5 times daily making religion less suffocating and embracing.

With numerous awards and nominations behind it, About Elly deserves to be given consideration and attention by all serious fans of World Cinema. For nearly 2 hours Farhadi has us mesmerized, captivated, our eyes glued to the screen while he works his unmistakable brand of magic. About Elly is truly a cinematic experience to savior.

This review was originally published on 9/18/12. Cinema Guild released About Elly to US audiences on April 8th.

Having been greatly impressed by recent works such as A Separation and About Elly, I was curious to learn what other hidden gems I could uncover from Iranian cinema. After a little digging, I found Children of Heaven and I can say hand on heart that I found it to be one of the most charming and satisfying pieces of cinema I have ever had the privilege to view.

Released around 1998, director/writer Majid Majidi’s film has the simplest plot imaginable. Eight year old Ali (Amir Farrokh Hashemian) is tasked by his sick mother to go grocery shopping and take his younger sister, Zarah’s (Bahare Seddiqi) only pair of shoes to the cobbler for repair. Ali leaves the repaired shoes outside of the shop, as is the custom, and whilst inside a blind peddler inadvertently mistakes the shoes for cast offs, throws them into his barrow and takes off.

For the majority of families in the west, the loss of a pair of old shoes would be no hardship, but in Ali and Zahra’s world there is zero spare cash to buy a pair of replacement shoes. Theirs is a family living on the breadline, existing literally hand to mouth. The Mother is too ill to even consider taking in washing, while Father makes his living serving tea at the local factory. Food is purchased only with the goodwill and credit facility of the local shopkeeper, and to cap it all, the family are 6 months behind with the rent.

The siblings’ answer to their loss is to formulate a plan. Zahra rather begrudgingly agrees to share Ali’s pair of tattered old sneakers. Zahra will wear them for school in the mornings and after school run home as fast as her legs can carry her when she passes them onto Ali who takes his class in the afternoons. As is the case with most plans of mice and men, and in particular young children they are likely to go awry.

In itself, the loss of a single pair of girl’s shoes would not be enough to interest and engage an audience for 90 minutes. This is where the genius of Majid Majidi’s storytelling comes into play. By placing the children in a home that is no stranger to poverty, Majid creates the conditions where in the mind of the children the loss of a single pair of shoes signifies nothing short of a disaster. By working the elements of the film against each other, Majid manages to create enough tension to keep the audience on Beta blockers for a week.

Majid cannot be praised highly enough for painting an insignificant event and turning it into a work of cinematic beauty. What’s more, it’s a director of rare quality who is able to tease the quality of performance out of such young actors, who’s range would put many a top Hollywood actor to shame. Some of the expressions on their tiny faces are almost telepathic. It’s the children’s’ faces that speak to us so eloquently, and through their gestures we instinctively understand how the children are feeling and what they are trying to communicate.

Children of Heaven was Iran’s first ever film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film lost out that year to Italy’s Life Is Beautiful, and ordinarily I would never consider reviewing a film some 15 years after it’s release. But such is the wide ranging appeal of Majid Majidi’s film, and the fact that it is so utterly charming it deserves to be watched by the new generation of film goers, and anyone who missed it first time around.

I, for one, cannot ever remember being blown away so completely by a film. I was engaged and emotionally involved within minutes of seeing those big brown sobbing eyes of Ali and Zahra. Emotional it was, but at no point did I ever feel the film would disappear into a sea of sentimentality. On the contrary, Majid is far too skilful a director to use such a cheap trick. Of course we recognise the difficulty of the children’s conundrum, but it’s not sentimentality that draws us to their plight, but tremendous acting and magnificent storytelling.

Through Children of Heaven, Majid Majidi has shown us that filmmakers shouldn’t necessarily need huge budgets, convoluted plots, exotic locations and A-listers to make a great film. What is required to make a great film (And Children of Heaven is a great film) is a simple plot, and a genius of a director who knows exactly what he wants and knows exactly how to get it.