Movie Review
“About Elly”
I have used social media to try to diversify the people
to whom I pay attention. Listening to a variety of voices and seeing humanity
expressed in varied cultural styles and colors has not necessarily helped me
find answers to life’s ultimate questions. But it has enabled me to see life as
a mystery lived in a world full of visible and invisible colors. We see a world
with a color spectrum of which we only see a spectrum. Beyond the spectrum we
see are invisible colors within the bands of ultraviolet and infrared colors.
We see, hear, and observe only a portion of our surrounding reality. Then as we
process what we actually see, each of us only takes notice of what we notice.
As individuals we learn that we notice only a little of what we experience
while in our conversations with others we begin to realize that others have
noticed things we didn’t notice but in our conversations we realize that what
they noticed about the mystery of life helps us better understand what we
experienced regarding the mystery of life.
Discovering
diversity has served to heighten my appreciation that each and every human life
is an example of a life participating in a universe of mystery. When I watch a
foreign movie I watch it believing that my singular perspective generally needs
to be joined in conversation regarding other’s experiences. It is tempting, for
some Christians to imagine it is unhelpful to pay attention to the stories and
life perspectives of those who do not have “our
Christian truths”. But this seems like a viewpoint which fails to
appreciate that Christ entered the world in humanity to convey to us that God
was with us in whatever place he found us. As a Christian it seems to me that
instead of disregarding a non-Christian part of humanity we are involved with a
God who reaches out to all humanity to be in their midst. Our message is not
one of if you are not Christian you are nothing, but rather if you are human,
Christ has entered into our existence as human beings. Watching a movie
composed of Iranians created by Iranian script writers, and presented by
Iranian actors and actresses helps me to see Iranians through Iranian eyes. I
am convinced that this is how God sees people. He sees us carrying on in the
mystery of life. He reaches out to meet us in those places where we are living.
This is why watching foreign films can be helpful. We are able to see human
stories about people that God loves. I have written enough about why I think
watching foreign films is important. Let’s now start to talk … “About Elly”.
I
loved “About Elly”. It set forth the story of a small community of people
wanting two lonely people to find their counterpart, their special love, for
their journey in this world. It was a movie built around community dynamics. It
reveals a story about a community inviting someone not well known into a
community. It tells a story of two people considering falling in love with a
sense that being a couple is connected to being in a broader community. Likewise
it is a story about how assumptions regarding an individual can serve to
isolate the individual the community imagines it is inviting freely and fully
into community life. The film shows us an example of how individuals contribute
to events that themselves will bring upheavals within the life of the
community. Individuals will shape events and then be reshaped by the events
they helped to shape. It is a community that reaches out to Elly and then is
driven into turmoil when Elly disappears.
I was
deeply impressed by the film’s ability to show the fluidity of characters
within the experience of human life. A community is composed of varied persons
with different tendencies, perspectives and life patterns. The community is
ever changing because actions, events, responses and group dynamics are always
bringing forth differing blends brought forth by the characters involved in
group dynamics. Likewise individuals within communities are always being
confronted, shaped, and reshaped by changing events and the relationship
between members of a community and the whole of a community. This movie, in my
mind was a masterpiece for the simple reason that the ensemble of characters
revealed in the story changed while remaining true to nature in relationship
with how life moved forward. The characters are real human beings. Some
tend to be patriarchal, easily upset, judgmental, sensitive, sympathetic,
and/or bridge builders. In the life of the community what is a strength in one
instance is a weakness in others, and through continued life together the
community provides the resources for an individual’s obtaining strength to move
forward, while the strengths of individuals alternately become the resources
aiding the health of the community and the individuals within the community.
The movie seems to show differing perspectives within the young and old, and
touches on occasion upon a Muslim perspective of fate, wherein life seems
ordained from above and yet human activity seems to be part of that fate so
that each person must actively do their part in the unfolding mystery of life.
I don’t
know enough about Iranian culture to know if the story being told was meant to
be viewed as realistic or sometimes subversive, but I could imagine it being
something of both. I found it refreshing seeing Iranians setting forth an
Iranian story. In my world, they are usually described without humanity by
those interested in declaring them as enemies. But here when there is a scene
where a samovar is brought forth, it is with the seeming hospitality that I am
being asked to sit down and have tea while a community deals with life like
human beings always do everywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment