Amour (Love)

The director Michael Haneke (left) on the set with actor Jean-Louis Trintignant

Michael Haneke on the set with actress Emmanuelle Riva and actor Jean-Louis Trintignant

AMOUR (Love)            B+               

France  Germany  Austria  (127 mi)  2012  d:  Michael Haneke        

Sony Pictures Classics [United States]

Winner of Haneke’s second Palme d’Or (1st prize) at Cannes, though overly morose, and not without some controversy, as it appears to be a safe and conventional choice, with a Nanni Moretti-led Jury picking this film over Carlos Reygadas’ 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #2 Post Tenebras Lux and Wes Anderson’s 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Moonrise Kingdom, both devastatingly original and much more inspiring works, while the talk of the festival was the even more fiendishly outlandish Léos Carax revival 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #4 Holy Motors, yet the director has made a powerfully devastating film about the horrible indignity of dying, and watching someone you love deteriorate before your eyes, where in your mind they’re still alive and strong, the way you remember them, except they’ve become fragile creatures that can’t help themselves anymore.  What’s different about this approach is Haneke’s unsparing and exhaustively banal detail in depicting all aspects leading up to death, including the unsettling, interior psychological turmoil that plays into such a personalized experience.  Perhaps Haneke’s crowning achievement is casting the aging couple with French New Wave cinema royalty, writing the film for Jean-Louis Trintignant (who’s 81) as Georges, from Claude Lelouch’s A MAN AND A WOMAN (1966) and Eric Rohmer’s My Night at Maud's (Ma Nuit Chez Maud) (1969), a superb actor who hasn’t worked in seven years, while Emmanuelle Riva (85) is Anne, from Alain Resnais’s HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR (1959), the one who has a series of medical setbacks.  Both appeared in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s THREE COLORS TRILOGY, Riva appearing in BLUE (1993) while Trintignant was the lead in RED (1994), where both personify a cultured European dignity with an undisputed air of intelligence in their roles, which certainly comes into play here, as both have professional backgrounds living in an enormous Parisian apartment with an entire wall filled with shelves of books, including a piano, where she was a revered piano instructor, along with various drawings and paintings on the wall.  This couple is the epitome of cultural refinement, where it’s actually a joy, initially, to watch their clever wordplay with one another.            

The initial intimacy is followed by the realization that Anne is likely having a minor stroke while sitting at the breakfast table, where hospital efforts to restore her back to full health fail, leaving her partially paralyzed on her right side, requiring a wheelchair, where Georges has to help her get in and out of bed, her chair, the bathroom, and anywhere else she goes, but we never again see her leave the apartment, creating a highly restrictive use of ever confining space, as if the walls are caving in on them.  While they still maintain a daily routine, where the mundane details become the surgically precise structure of the film, they simply don’t get out anymore, so all they have is each other, music, and photograph books of earlier memories.  Their daughter Eva, Isabelle Huppert, shows obvious concern, thinking her mother should be receiving round the clock hospital care, but after her initial experience, Anne has no interest in ever returning to another hospital.  Eva complains to Georges, as if he’s not doing enough, but he’s taking care of her himself, feeding her, helping her perform the daily exercises, with nurse visits three times a week, and the doctor every other week, but Eva is devastated when her mother has another mild stroke and loses much of her speech, where her indistinguishable words don’t make sense and she can’t make out what her mother’s trying to say, which only becomes more disturbing.  None of the medical setbacks are shown, but happen incrementally, where Anne, once a fiercely stubborn force to be reckoned with, becomes completely helpless, requiring full-time care, which Georges is happy to provide, though it is exhausting.  He is the consummate picture of a man giving his undying devotion to the love of his life, where he is still consumed by her presence, still filled with the incredible aura of her life. 

But no matter how well educated and culturally aware, this never prepares anyone for watching a dying partner, where the daily grind eventually grows frustrating, especially when all you’re looking for is just a tiny sign that the person you’re married to is still there.  Haneke has a seamless approach to unraveling his film, where memories and dreams are mixed into the daily routines, reflecting the inner thoughts of those onscreen, where the mosaic of mixing them all together is an extremely accurate reflection of their existence.  So too is the way Georges starts hiding just how ill Anne is becoming, especially from Eva, who continues to call for the latest updates, where his energy to respond without anything hopeful to say simply disappears with each passing day, yet she persists, which from Georges’ point of view feels like an invasion, as all this couple has left is a few private moments.  The energy it takes out of her mother for one of Eva’s visits is something perhaps only Georges understands, which leaves Eva even more devastated as she simply doesn’t know what else to do.  Georges, of course, knows he’s already providing all there is to do, but he can’t change the agonizing twists of fate.  The lingering finality of the experience is hauntingly sad, as there’s nothing about it that’s easy or refined, where the underlying theme that persists throughout the film is a civilized and genteel couple who are cultured, who understand that beauty stands alongside life’s tragedies, but this still leaves you weakened and trembling at the knees, where nothing can prepare you for the inevitable finality.  Haneke doesn’t make any of this comfortable for the viewer, but it is a daring and exquisitely elegant portrait of what awaits us all, given a poetic and wordless farewell that has a touch of theatricality to it, where there are no neat bows tying up loose ends, instead there’s a sudden flood of emptiness, and the rest is silence.   

If truth be told, our own lives may have an overload of painfully prolonged and tragic deaths very reminiscent of what is portrayed onscreen, unfortunately witnessing too many people die in the end stages of cancer, so there is a certain degree of traumatic discomfort when encountering the subject once again, especially with the unaltered, unedited amount of realism mandated by this director, which to a large extent is the dramatic power of the film, the accumulating effects of death shown with such acute detail.  As a result, this is not a film likely to be revisited again.  The film is reminiscent of Maurice Pialat’s THE MOUTH AGAPE (1974), another film about a woman slowly dying from cancer, a starkly realistic portrait of death, told in segments of real time with long takes of her lying in bed.  While Haneke narrows his focus to an aging couple very much in love, Pialat paints a satirical portrait of the woman’s family avoiding bedroom visits or any dealings with sickness or death as they instead find ridiculous ways to pleasure and amuse themselves as they all wait for her to die.  In contrast, Haneke shows us the face of death through an exacting control over the increasingly oppressive material, confining actions within a ruthlessly restrictive space, which seems to parallel Georges’ efforts to maintain control over his beloved wife, right down to locking her inside a room so no one else, including her daughter, can see her in such a deteriorating state.  Haneke has always had a deep connection with suicide, preferring a dignified exit, sparing the dying from the agonizing medical atrophy, instead seeing it in its most simplistic light, which may be seen as an act of human kindness, however wretched it appears.  Once distanced from Haneke’s film, the more one appreciates a certain simplistic perfection, though one can't yet determine overall greatness when the subject matter alone is something that would likely never be returned to, so as a one time only experience, how significant can a film be?   Might the same be asked of Haneke’s own loathsome Funny Games (1997) (1997), or Pasolini’s SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (1975)?  Still can't answer that perplexing question.  Final thoughts, however, are appreciating the film’s tenderness and restraint, including the unique way Haneke expresses compassion through unspoken, interior thoughts and a highly inventive use of visual cues, offscreen sound, and original imagery.

2016 Top Ten List #8 Right Now, Wrong Then (Ji-geum-eun-mat-go-geu-ddae-neun-teul-li-da)

RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN (Ji-geum-eun-mat-go-geu-ddae-neun-teul-li-da)   A-           
South Korea  (121 mi)  2015 ‘Scope  d:  Hong Sang-soo

Hong Sang-soo was born in Korea but got a bachelor’s degree at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and his masters at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Making films since 1996, Hong is known for complicated narratives, sometimes showing the same events twice, each time through a different character's eyes, but also for the most obnoxious male characters on the planet, usually grotesquely overbearing, with bad manners and a tendency to get drunk and hop into bed with younger girls, usually they are artists like film directors or professors sleeping with younger students, where they perform miserably if at all.  Impotency is a key ingredient, even if only psychological, as his characters mostly remain in a state of emotionally repressed inertia.  He's certainly a minimalist, writes his own films, and remains perhaps the last of the independent film movement left in South Korea.  He's left alone to make art films that exist in his own universe, though NIGHT AND DAY (2008) was partially financed by France and was filmed in Paris.  Critics love to call him the Eric Rohmer of the East, as his films are nearly all dialogue, examining relationships in much the same way, but this is misleading, as Hong is far more confrontational in his use of deluded and misbehaving men, using complex narrative schemes that result in a more experimental style all his own, as his films are a devastating critique of befuddled male abhorrence, where it’s fair to say the abominable behavior on display is universal, the ultimate power play option where men are constantly trying to get the upper hand even while they’re flailing away in utter futility.  They simply refuse to admit their weaknesses, even when they’re caught in the act.  None of his films register as a Wow factor, instead they are all low key, intimate, and conversational.  He has an extremely naturalistic style of storytelling, creating a compelling atmosphere, especially a complete lack of artifice, which he uses to shoot among the best sex sequences in the modern era, as there are simply no inhibitions.  But men are boorish and women are mysteriously attracted to their authority.  The director’s first 8 films were all shown in Chicago, either at Facets or the Film Festival until 2008, bursting onto the scene with distinguished flair and imagination, but then haven’t been seen since though he’s continued to make one film a year.  Now releasing his 17th feature film, the last 8 have all been shown at the New York Film Festival, while none have screened in Chicago.  In June at the Museum of the Moving Image, New York even screened a retrospective of his entire feature-length output (The Hong Sang-soo Retrospective Is a Must-See - The New Yorker).

Hong has always had a fascination with mirror images, treading the same ground twice, allowing characters to see themselves differently, where this slight variation on a theme often leads to startling results, where he finds moments of gripping honesty that come out of nowhere, like a shock to the system.  Shooting in a tableaux style, the camera remains affixed, usually to a tiny, enclosed space, often holding for extended sequences, allowing the scenes to develop, and perhaps at the last moment the camera will veer up into the trees or sky or distant landscape, once again holding the shot, or zoom onto a specific object of focus, such as a face, allowing the emotional state of mind to register.  In this way, the director decides what the audience sees and notices, carefully making subtle changes at appropriate moments, inevitably changing the outcome significantly with almost surgical precision.  Many claim Woody Allen has been making the same film for successive decades, with only slight variations.  The same can be said for Hong, though far fewer people see his films, which have just about become an endangered species, as his top-grossing film until now has been IN ANOTHER COUNTRY (2012), featuring international star extraordinaire Isabelle Huppert in the lead role, raking in a grand total of $25,000.  So this guy operates on a completely different wavelength than what we’re used to, often dealing with modern routine and repetition, yet showing a surprising amount of originality.  Like a puzzle piece that all fits together in the grand scheme of things, he operates with almost mathematical certainty, continually changing the players, shifting their focus of attention, yet the prevailing themes are immediately recognizable, an adherence to social customs, male power and vanity on display, the elusiveness of love, the difficulty of sustaining relationships, violating moral boundaries, a refusal to learn from past mistakes, leading to regrets, apologies, moments of tenderness, and personal torment, as he’s an extraordinary playwright who continues to explore the human condition by finding a seemingly unlimited variation of new possibilities.  While one might think being away from his films for nearly a decade it would be easy to fall out of the rhythm and visual language of his cinematic style, where memory plays so heavily in the slight shifts and variations from film to film, instead it felt like “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” as there was a renewed appreciation for what we’ve been missing all along, which is a director that shuns pretense and commercialism, but instead insists upon exploring how people operate within themselves, using a Jacques Demy choreography of missed opportunities, showing how easily the choices we make might lead to another direction, where he loves to compare parallel storylines, each one a distinct possibility, where there’s no one single existing reality, but a merging of what takes place only in the imagination and what actually happens, where it’s up to each individual viewer to distinguish the difference. 

What’s amusing, yet tragically profound, is how this film reveals Hong’s autobiographical arc, as he has in real life finally become a character from one of his own films, breaking from the years of routine and repetition, in this case 30 years of marriage, to run off with the female star of one of his films, Kim Min-hee, who is twenty years younger, declaring his love for her and his intent to start a new life.  This has caused such a major scandal in Korea that it has become tabloid fodder, with both at the center of attention in what can only be described as a moral dilemma.  Besides being an actress, Kim was a spokesperson for a line of cosmetics, but after public adultery was exposed, she was immediately dropped with the company demanding compensation for back pay.  Meanwhile Hong’s longtime wife is outraged, claiming her husband is failing to support their own daughter, claiming he is no longer paying for her education abroad as he needs to support his new girlfriend, covering for her unexpected financial loss.  Back and forth texts between Hong’s wife and Kim’s mother have been made public, with one claiming the other should have been a better parent, while the other reminded the irate wife that she is having difficulty raising her own daughter.  Like Woody Allen and his 1992 breakup fiasco with Mia Farrow, running away with one of her own adopted daughters, declaring his undying love, while at the same time fending off charges of child molestation that have stuck with him throughout his lifetime, let’s just agree that this is another huge mess, though Hong’s wife indicated she had some inkling something was up after watching this film, with its own stark revelations, where truth and fiction intersect.  It is perhaps no coincidence that the lead male role is an art film director, Ham Chun-su (Jung Je-young), visiting the city of Suwon for a screening of his most recent film, where he is invited to participate in a Q & A discussion.  The title card interestingly reads, “Right Then, Wrong Now,” a distinct play on words suggesting something is out of place.  Arriving a day early, as the event was pushed back a day, he mulls around town visiting historic sites, including an ancient palace, carrying hot coffee in a cup to warm him from the winter chill in the air, where he soon notices an attractive girl, Yoon Hee-jung (Kim Min-hee), introducing himself, where he’s surprised to discover she recognizes his name as a noted director, inviting her for coffee, learning she is a former model that decided she was much happier instead spending her days painting, though it leaves her alone and isolated for much of the time.  Pressing to see her work, they retreat to her art studio, which happens to be nearby, describing her paintings as loosely going with the flow without an inherent plan, which is also how he describes his movies, believing they have something in common.  While obviously attracted to her, making that plain for her to see, he seems more interested in drawing her out of her shell, yet hides his real intentions behind pleasantries and flattering politeness, while she remains shy, quietly hidden behind a customary wall of reserve.  Working up an appetite, they go out for sushi, which includes a heavy dose of soju (rice alcohol), making toasts to one another, before heading off to a café where a friend is having a party.  Imbibing in still more alcohol, he inadvertently blurts out more than is discreet, causing Hee-jung to excuse herself, as his constant attention is making her uncomfortable.  Both having drunk too much, they depart on separate paths. 

The next day at the screening shows amusing aftereffects, as in front of a scant few, Chun-su suffers an emotional meltdown, still hung-over from the previous night’s drinking binge, erupting in anger at having to describe in one sentence what his films are attempting to convey, floundering for a while before gaining momentum, where his words only grow more aggressive and inflammatory, as if it’s ludicrous to even attempt such a thing, claiming his films have always fought “against” words, eventually walking out of his own film discussion, having reached a breaking point.  Once outside, having a smoke, he rails against the insipid shallowness of the film critic on the podium, describing him as “ignorant,” absolving himself of any responsibility for the incident before returning back to Seoul.  Retracing its steps, the film begins again with a different title card reading “Right Now, Wrong Then,” as the two meet in front of the palace, head off for coffee and tea before visiting her art studio.  This time Chun-su is more demonstrative, calling her work utterly conventional, as she refuses to challenge herself, suggesting she may need to reevaluate her artistic motives.  She is floored and dumbstruck by these remarks, which he quickly apologizes for afterwards, suggesting he needs some air to smoke.  As he steps out the door, she asks if all directors are like that.  Grinning sheepishly to himself, he responds, “Yes, we are.”  Surprisingly, she takes more interest in him when he’s inconsiderate and wrenchingly honest, even to the point of being brutally cruel.  This time, in the drunken conversation over sushi and soju, Chun-su passionately declares his love for her, like uttering a personal proclamation, but then collapses into a heap of embarrassment and personal torment by revealing he’s married and has kids (a pertinent piece of information that was not revealed the first time around), which seems to have a crushing effect upon him.  Although consumed by tears, he once again declares his love, making sure there is no misunderstanding.  Overheated by all the drama, he needs to step outside to clear his head, welcoming the blustery winter cold.  At the party, Hee-jung quickly excuses herself, claiming she’s drunk too much, leaving Chun-su to make a spectacle of himself, as he hilariously removes every stitch of clothing to several terrified women who react in horror, utterly petrified by what they see.  This panicked confusion is followed by Chun-su and Hee-jung leaving together, where they wonder if they need to invent a lie or create an acceptable explanation to avoid moral suspicion, which is equally amusing, considering what just happened.  Once outside, Chun-su suggests they take a taxi to Kangwon Province (a reference to his second film), which she readily agrees to, but then both lose their courage when a taxi arrives but is pointed in the wrong direction.  Several more taxis go by just crossing the street, so they end up walking instead down dimly lit, narrow streets that are completely empty in the late hours as they approach her house when Hee-jung receives an anxious call on her cellphone from her mother, wondering if she was with that “madman” from the party earlier, as one of the girls obviously described him as a lunatic that took all his clothes off in front of them.  Scrutinizing him afterwards, she curiously asks what got into him, but they’re both still too inebriated to make a fuss.  Not yet ready to say goodbye, still flush with the adrenaline of possibilities, Chun-su urges her to go in, but come back outside, suggesting he’ll wait in the bitter cold.  Promising to do exactly that, she goes inside, with her mother greeting her at the door, while Chun-su has a smoke in the bitter cold, still standing in a nearby alley, which also references his fourth film TURNING GATE (2002), where a gentleman suitor waits hopefully in an alley waiting for a girl to step outside her family home.  In each case, they wait in vain, as Chun-su, showing no patience, quickly exits.  The next day there is no meltdown at his screening, no verbal jousting, instead he stands around outside the building smoking with friends, accepting all flattery that is directed his way, which includes greeting Hee-jung’s arrival, as she eagerly anticipates viewing his first film, vowing to watch his others as well, again, both going their separate ways.        

2015 Top Ten List #10 About Elly (Darbareye Elly)

ABOUT ELLY  (Darbareye Elly)        A-               
Iran  France  (119 mi)  2009  d:  Asghar Farhadi                  

Asghar Farhadi is one of the few major Iranian directors that still makes films in Iran, a nation where literally dozens of filmmakers have been arrested and released under the Ahmadinejad regime, as Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof, along with filmmaker and actress Mahnaz Mohammadi, remain imprisoned for political differences, their passports revoked, banned from making future movies, while legendary Iranian New Wave directors Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf work in exile.  It’s a significant paradox that Farhadi has been free to serve on juries for major international film festivals, and even win major prizes himself, including his highly acclaimed A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin) (2011), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film (also nominated for Best Original Screenplay), becoming the highest grossing Iranian film ever made (listed as #40 foreign language movie of all-time, Foreign Language Movies at the Box Office - Box Office Mojo) and the first Iranian to win an Academy Award in any competitive category, while his compatriots languish in prison.  We are reminded that in September 2010 during the making of A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin), which due to past film successes was made without any governmental support, Farhadi was banned from making the film by the Iranian Ministry of Culture, as during earlier acceptance speeches at award ceremonies, he expressed support for Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an exiled Iranian filmmaker living at the time in Afghanistan, and imprisoned political filmmaker Jafar Panahi, both of whom are linked to the Iranian Green Movement that questioned the validity of the 2009 Iranian Presidential election, demanding the removal of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office.  The ban was lifted a month later after Farhadi apologized for his remarks and claimed to be inaccurately perceived.  While certainly considered one of the most important directors of the 90’s, the Iranian government has long refused to permit the screening of any Kiarostami film for well over a decade, causing him to remark, “The government has decided not to show any of my films for the past 10 years... I think they don’t understand my films and so prevent them being shown just in case there is a message they don’t want to get out.  They tend to support films that are stylistically very different from mine – melodramas” ("Abbas Kiarostami – Not A Martyr", Stuart Jeffries from The Guardian, April 26, 2005), which begs the question, why is Farhadi still visibly working in Iran while others have disappeared or been silenced?  The Past (Le Passé) (2013) was even partially financed by Iran.  Perhaps it’s a matter of economics, as his films continue to make money, seemingly at odds with arthouse filmmakers who have other priorities.  That being said, ABOUT ELLY is only belatedly having an international release six years after it premiered to considerable acclaim at the Berlin Festival in 2009 where Farhadi won a Silver Bear for Best Director, winning dozens of other awards as well, but it was mysteriously shelved afterwards, as an earlier distributor that acquired the film apparently went out of business.  It’s curious that this film’s public introduction comes “after” his two earlier films drew such heavy international praise, where one of them surprisingly became the most successful film in Iranian film history. 

When seen in this context, how ironic that the film with the least amount of accompanying accolades is arguably this director’s best film.  This may be the closest Farhadi has come to emulating Jafar Panahi, where Western elements creep into an Iranian film, whose CRIMSON GOLD (2003) mixes the stylization of Iranian social realism with a European art film, actually paying tribute to Fellini’s NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957).  In similar fashion, ABOUT ELLY borrows liberally from Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA (1960), a film where Italian neo-realism comes face to face with contemporary modern society, a brooding interior film that expresses extreme emotional alienation through slow pacing, narrative ambiguity, and extraordinary visual stylization.  In each, a large degree of the film’s success can be attributed to the brilliance of the character development, where multiple figures literally come to life onscreen, becoming familiar to us all by the end of the picture. While Antonioni creates spaces between characters through silences or long wordless sequences, Farhadi takes a more collective approach, creating a group dynamic that is reflective of a casual self-interest mindset when one member of a group of friends goes mysteriously missing during a weekend trip to the Caspian Sea.  Intent on examining the fractured and hypocritical culture of the middle-class, Farhadi conceals their underlying motives throughout most of the film before allowing them to erupt in emotional fireworks during an explosive finale.  An essay-like comment on contemporary times, ABOUT ELLY also accentuates the extreme degree of alienation from rapidly changing cultural norms, exposing utter indifference to the social injustice of women, whose powerlessness leaves them even further isolated from the mainstream, their lives dominated and completely controlled by the arrogance and paternalistic whims of selfishly deluded men, revealing just how completely out of touch they are with their wives and female counterparts who are all but invisible to them.  The stark divide is a breathtaking surprise, a social critique beautifully revealed through unraveling layers of seemingly innocuous conversations that become dramatically intensified, ultimately a distinctively evolving passion play that reaches heights of hysteria, dramatically expressed with a great deal of clarity, though this only becomes evident by the end.  Farhadi’s true strength is his writing, and while there are nearly a dozen featured characters, the naturalism of their performances really serves the overall outcome.  Much like a stage play, though expressed with utter simplicity, the speed and rhythm of the conversational interplay between characters must reflect the overall mood changes of a very complicated social dynamic, where it’s essential they be viewed as believable and authentic.  The success of this film is that all the movable parts contribute to the whole, where what’s lurking under the surface, seemingly benign and of little consequence, has a powerful impact that in the end provides a stunning societal exposé. 

The film begins innocently enough, as a group of middle-class friends, old classmates from the university, set out for a relaxing weekend on the shores of the Caspian Sea, three married couples and their young children, including Sepideh, Golshifteh Farahani from My Sweet Pepper Land (2013), who organized the trip, who brings along Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti), her daughter’s kindergarten teacher, while also inviting a male friend Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini), who recently separated from his wife and is visiting from Germany.  While the boisterous mood remains upbeat, with plenty of music and chatter, the overriding feeling is one of exuberance, expressing the joy of being young and happy, shot in a cinéma vérité style, where the audience is exposed to wave after wave of overlapping conversations.  Not to be deterred, despite being full for the holidays, the group is offered a seaside villa with broken windows and no beds that hasn’t been fixed up yet, but the charm of the nearby sea is inviting.  Playing charades, singing songs, or spontaneously breaking out into dance, it’s a celebratory atmosphere with plenty of food brought in for the occasion.  While Elly is admittedly shy and reluctantly hesitant, there’s a bit of matchmaking going on behind the scenes, which is all in good fun, where they’re playfully introduced as young newlyweds to the rental owners to avoid any hint of scandal.  Nonetheless, with things seemingly going well, Elly is admittedly uncomfortable and seeks to leave early, spoiling the fun for Sepideh who encourages her to stay.  While the women are out buying food and the men are having a strenuous volleyball match on the beach, Elly is watching the kids, seen in a state of ecstasy while flying a kite, but then Sepideh’s daughter frantically cries out for help as one of the other children has gone out too far and is being carried out to sea, creating an panic-stricken moment of hysteria where all the adults run and jump into the water without a clue where he is.  Fortunately, after a delirious search, the child is safely rescued, but then they notice Elly has disappeared, where no one knows what happened to her.  Unsure whether she drowned or returned home on her own, suddenly the film takes on a more sinister mood, where they have to get their stories straight before calling the police, as they don’t wish to be implicated.  Self-preservation overrides any sense of honor in the face of tragedy, as each begins looking out for themselves, pointing their fingers at others, trying any way they can to escape blame.  It’s a sad and pathetic situation when they literally turn on one another, like sharks with blood in the water, with husbands blaming wives, claiming they should have been watching the kids, not some stranger whose last name they don’t even know, fearing how this might ruin their reputations and good social standing.  A carefree vacation of best friends turns into a desperate moment of panic, fear, and outright suspicion.  In no time it grows even more complicated, like a house of cards imploding on itself, where a protracted series of lies meant to spare someone emotional grief only escalates, reaching a level of emotional hysteria previously unseen in Iranian films.  Relying heavily on suspense, Farhadi unspools this extraordinary drama in sophisticated fashion, first creating the unsettled, murky waters of suspicion and distrust, then critiquing the morality of patronizing, overzealous social conventions while also exploring the male/female dynamic in modern Iran.  It’s a masterful effort that moves from the sunny comforts of Èric Rohmer territory to the dark psychological realms of Hitchcockian suspense.