Elo

Director Wajahat Ali's achingly poignant short 'ELO' chronicles the loss of innocence of a young man, played by the brilliant Syed Saad Farrukh, that side by side mirrors the decline of urban civilization that stands with us today. The film brings to light the delicately profound issue of people committing suicide when the world gets rainy and they weren't prepared to see this day.

Named after a Malagasy word that means an umbrella, the film opens with an extremely happy young chap who is naively excited to go for his first day at office. Things supposedly seem to be happening as per plan until nothing works at all. The boy spirals into his own destruction hereafter.

As if the society is now looking back at the lives from beyond the graves of infinite souls that departed owing to extreme self-confidence issues, the film unfolds in an unrealistic world over one single day as we witness the crucial events in the boy's life that unknowingly lead him to a heartbreaking end. Each incident has a connection to the baffling sight of an umbrella on the top of this boy's head whereas the world around him roams free.

Saad's performance is nothing short of a revelation. Who is this unusual young boy? He totally inhabits the character of a once idealistic young man who, stripped of his humanity by a brutal society, is driven to degradation. Saad has convinced himself that he is an unworthy person and acts accordingly, extending his suffering and bitterness to the lives of the people around him (us) without taking away sensitivity from his actions. Camera work by Salik and Basharat Hussain remains subtle and it gels with the on-goings. Wajahat, as a director, had me appreciating him throughout for handling the subject matter so well and managing to get a range of performance from the lead actor.

Just before the film's unsettling climax, the boy is still a sensitive dreamer who wants to pursue the day successfully even though he has been stripped of all his tidiness. The poignancy of a scene when he breaks down in anger, sadness, disappointment and borderline insanity on the office's glass maiden door comes across so magnified and brutal because we already know how his life is going to unfold from this point and because it can be an unsettling reminder of how our own dreams may fallen short. As Saad sits in a dark spot towards the end, looking at a few paper cards with a beatific smile on his face and a tear in his eye, he tells the audience that he has a strange feeling that the scene is familiar. In that moment of apathy, 'ELO' allows us to see beyond the surface of urban life to its center.

As I read more about the film, I was surprised to see all the team members have been freelancers and the film too is a non-commercial project. To everyone in team, you guys are what we need. Brilliant work done!