Beware: Iranians lie a lot!
Cats: Society|During these cold December days I’m spending a lot of time with family. One of our favourite family activities is of course whatching movies. We have gone through a pile of new Iranian movies as well. One of the most interesting ones was “Darbareye Elly” (2009).
The translation in English would be “About Elly”. It’s about a group of young Iranians who know each other well since they have been friends since college. They decide to go on a weekend trip up north of Iran. The lady organizing the trip, Sepideh, brings along the teacher of her toddler who she tries to hook her up with one of her friends who is visiting from Germany. The teacher, “Elly” seems introvert and innocent, and a good match, but then suddenly something happens. Through this incident, a lot of lies come to light. Everything that happens along the way is stuck together by lies, but in the end it all collapses and the truth comes out.
What struck me about this movie was the good acting (for Iranian movie standards) and the good storyline. Nothing was polished up, all the dialogues could have been taken from real life.
It reminded me again how easy we Iranians lie to each other, because we have been accustomed to do so since childhood. It’s horrible and it doesn’t make life easier in the end. I hope that one day we can evoluate culturally so this nasty trait would become something of the past. I personally have a very hard time coping with people who lie. It’s indecent and shows little character. Anyway, in the meantime I’m considering a course “Lie to me” so I can see by people’s bodylanguage when they’re lying.
