An Iranian friend visited us a week after the Oscars. Our conversation quickly shifted to what happened just a week ago during the Academy Awards ceremony. Our friend told us director and screenwriter Asghar Farhadi whose film won the best foreign-language award did not attend the ceremony because of Donald Trumps’ travel ban. She was obviously not thrilled.
Whenever Trump’s name was mentioned in a conversation, my instinct was to change the topic. So we talked about movies and not politics. She told us about Farhadi’s earlier film A Separation, which also won the best foreign film category in 2012. So my husband and I watched our first movie together in the Farsi language. Wow. This movie left me speechless at the end.
Netflix seemed to figure out a change in our taste and put another Iranian film, About Elly, in my queue.
We watched About Elly over the weekend. My husband immediately recognized two faces in the cast as they also appeared in A Separation. We couldn’t help but wonder if there are only five actors and actresses in the whole country of Iran. (Yet somehow we never wondered about Andy Lau who starred in most Chinese movies of our time.)
Asghar Farhadi was able to turn ordinary, low-key social interactions into complex, suspenseful, and gripping dramas. I could hear myself say the same lines and think the same thoughts as the characters in the script. Modern-day Iran is a closed country with dogmatic, religious culture, and its people have a deep-seated respect for the Koran and the law of the land. The subtle and very realistic tension is triggered by their sense of moral duty and the opposing force that seeks to break free from it. The result is a thoughtful and surprisingly reflective drama that exposes our nature and vulnerabilities.
In About Elly, three couples and their friends booked a beachfront villa to spend a weekend together. The group had three young children. In one of the earlier scenes, the men played beach volleyball while the women went to town to shop for food. Seeing a single lady friend sitting around enjoying the ocean breeze, one of the mothers casually asked her to keep an eye on the children that were playing in the water. Then the most unthinkable happened as the movie began its twists and turns.
Up to this point in the movie, I already resonated with these characters. Parents with young children do this more often than we’d like to admit. In a social function, we often get caught up in our games, our conversations, and our food that we hope someone is watching our kids. By a stroke of luck, we hope nothing will happen to our children and that we will find them intact at the end of the party.
A few years ago, my mommy friends and I discovered none of the kids were with us. Then someone told us a 12-year-old was playing with our young ones. We breathed a sigh of relief and patted ourselves on the back. We felt we were good-enough parents that we left our kids with a mature 12-year-old. But honestly, I was not proud of it as we put such a big responsibility on another child.
Once I told a group of mothers that I lost each of my three kids at least once. I thought these moms would echo what I said and even shared their own stories of how they too have lost their children. Instead, I was met with stares of disbelief and looks of sympathy. I was the only mom in that gathering that had kids gone missing…
When my son was three, he managed to unlock the front door and walked out of the house. (He later said he wanted to go find Mommy.) His one-year-old sister followed him out. My mother was reading her newspapers in the dining room and I was out grocery shopping. Half a block away, a car stopped when the driver saw a little Jeremy crossing the street. His sister had sat down on the sidewalk and did not cross. One of my neighbors recognized the two kids when she happened to be outside and brought them back to my house. My mother didn’t know they had walked out. By the time I got home, the whole ordeal was over. My mother nervously and apologetically told me what had happened. I wasn’t upset at all because I didn’t experience the angst of losing my children. They were already found.
A few years later, we went to Robert Moses State Park with a few other families. The beach was very crowded on that hot day. While all the kids played in the sand, we kicked back and relaxed as we were thankful that the beach was keeping our children occupied. Hours went by and suddenly we heard some commotion. Our big kids ran towards us screaming, “They found Emily!!” I looked up and saw a lifeguard carrying my 4-year-old in his arm. She was crying hysterically. I was mortified. I didn’t even know she was missing. At that instant, I was more concerned about what others thought of me than my daughter’s frantic tears. The worst part about missing a child is to face the wrath from my other half. “You didn’t know where she was?!?!” I knew my marriage would suffer if I were to retaliate with a snappy comment of my own. I held my tongue, endured the shame, and took the blame.
God had mercy. Once again I didn’t know I lost a child until after she was found.
My mother wasn’t so lucky. Twice she lost me and that she had to go find me.
Can you imagine going shopping with a five-year-old daughter and then returning home empty-handed without her?
I was left behind in a bustling department store in Taipei. A stranger found me and brought me to a precinct. A policeman from behind a tall desk asked me if I knew my phone number. “561-5698.” I answered, reciting a string of numbers that was ingrained in my brain. The policeman then called the number and my mother picked up. It might seem very strange my mother would go home after losing me in a department store, but it wasn’t really strange back then. In the 70s the only way to find anyone was through a landline. My mother rushed home because she knew I would call and she wanted to be by the phone. She was absolutely right. Within an hour I was reunited with my family.
(I had a phone conversation with my 78-year-old mother about this incident recently. She blamed me. “You always used to wander off. You always thought you knew the way.”)
Later I did experience what it was like to lose a child or two…for ten excruciating minutes. We were at a Super Target. Tired of following the kids around in the toy section, I went to get groceries while my husband stayed with our son at the LEGO aisle. The girls wanted to look at their own stuff so we let them go on their own. When I came back, my husband and I couldn’t find them. I knew we were at a confined space but I was beginning to get very worried. I did something all moms would do under the circumstances. I screamed at the top of my lungs for my child’s name. I didn’t care if I looked like a fool. Then I realized it would be more effective if I just went to Customer Service and asked them to make an announcement from the PA system. With that idea in mind, I hurried to the front of the store. That was when I saw my two girls running towards me. “We were looking for you and dad but we got lost!” The girls panted.
That was the last time I lost sight of my children.
But my mother wouldn’t be as lucky as I said earlier. She lost me again, along with my brother.
Can you imagine having a relative and her whole family fly in from another country to spend Christmas with you and only to see them at your doorsteps without the children?
“We lost them on the way here. Please do something!” My mom cried out to my aunt with whom we were visiting.
My brother was 14 and I was 10. We didn’t speak much English. It was late at night. And we had just arrived in Brooklyn by subway after a long flight from the west coast. We walked ahead of our parents and thought they were right behind us. After 10 to 15 minutes, we turned around and didn’t see anyone behind us anymore. I was confused and scared. We continued to walk, as my brother was determined to find our way. After half an hour, a police car pulled to a sudden stop right by us. My mom and my aunt called out our names from inside the police car while waving their arms in a frenzy. “My heart jumped out of my body.” My mom later said.
It’s easy for us to judge these parents for their apparent sign of negligence until we find ourselves on the same boat.
Director Asghar Farhadi’s films opened my eyes to see that we are all very much alike in spite of our culture, race, and religion. We are alike in how we want to be dutiful, yet at the same time, we want to break free from societal control. We are alike in how we want to be good and helpful, yet we end up resorting to deception and manipulation.
Most of us are too complex for our own good, I think.
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” (Matthew 19:14)
On Good Friday three years ago, we went to the American Museum of Natural History with a friend and her children. The museum was jam-packed on a school holiday. My younger daughter and her friends were about ten feet away from us, but between us was a large throng of people. I could see them but I couldn’t get to them. I overheard Emily when she said, “We are lost, but it’s okay. We will just stand here. My mom will find us.” She was five at the time, and she had found her kingdom of Heaven through simple trust and quiet confidence. Hearing what she said showed me what it means to be child-like (and not childish.)
My children are now older, and it is not as easy to lose them anymore. In fact, my son just did something to our phones so now they can track my husband and me from an iPad. They will be able to find us…if we ever go missing.