Yesterday night we headed over to a film screening organized by a local film club called Cine Darbar. For their week-end long film “festival” they had zoomed in on two less popularly known film nations – Japan and Iran. The Japenese films they showed were mostly by Ozu, a director that I mostly remember from my Stockholm Cinemateque going days as one of long, still, quiet scenes where the camera wouldn’t move for large parts of the film. To be honest, I found them slightly boring.

On the Iranian side, it coincided with nicely an interest in Iranian films triggered by Madhura, so we headed over to see “About Elly” by director Asghar Farhadi. The film, tells about a trip of three young families to North Iran and the shores of the Caspian sea. As part of the trip, Sepideh played by Golshifteh Farahani, has her hopes set on matching up newly divorced and returned from Germany Ahmad with her daughter’s teacher Elly. The story line is simple, not to say simplistic, but the film is held up strongly by some of the actor’s performances as well as the subtle exposure of social and morale codes that still seem to be prevalent in Iran.