Seeing the Elephant

In the fable by Rumi, six blind men seeking information as to what an elephant looks like, lays their hands on a different part of the animal’s body and based on the evidence deduce that the elephant is like the part that they are touching. Unable to agree as to its real shape, the inquiry ends in a violent argument. At the beginning of the film, SEEING THE ELEPHANT, in an all-but-deserted, late-night bus stop shelter, an advertising poster selling mobile phones ('The good life is as close as a call') disturbs the already disturbed evening of a Chinese copywriter. In the ad, the graphic of the man holding up a phone comes to life and changes places with his ad-man/creator. Escaping from the commercial captivity of the poster, he sets out in search of the promised ‘good life’. Like us, he craves something more. During his search, the unseen seer intersects in one way or another with all of the characters in the story, and, in the process, manages a few surprising insights. Like the elephant in the legend, the elephant in the film is the unseen human community – the aberrant notions, prejudices, frustrations and foibles that each of us manifest and experience, but few of us are prepared to admit to, denying or simply ignoring the ways in which 'the good life' is continually frustrated, misplaced or lost in the on-going struggle that is fought out across borders, in housing-commission flats, on the streets, in schools and in factories; where the irresistible forces of change slam headlong into the immovable block of custom and tradition. Welcome to the best-kept, secret meeting place in the world – Parramatta, Australia - home to a culturally diverse and unforgettable collection of unexpected sojourners-in-the-dusty-world - strangers in a strange land whose private histories and public beliefs blind them to the bigger picture, a blindness that usually serves to empower ignorance and intolerance. Like most multi-cultural communities anywhere in the world, Parramatta is composed of people that, despite their differences, are uncommonly like us: the Filipino father whose unspeakable childhood threatens his relationship with his son; the Vietnamese mother who wants to sabotage her daughter’s relationship with a non-Asian boyfriend; an Iranian university student that believes his manhood is being undermined by an overly protective parent; and a Pakistani daughter seeking to revenge her dying father for past cruelties. Here is a fable for this time, for all times, for a world made small by the Internet and mass communication... Here is the wisdom of common sense brought close to the eyes - the wisdom that all men and women are brothers and sisters in a world, well-told - a story that offers a place, a place in which only the story - the complete story - can encourage the blind to see... In the spaces between what we hope for and what is, in the problems and possibilities that inform our choices and goad us forwards, is the LIFE that we find in living - the search for the good life, the search for the elephant in the room. We are the Room. We are the Elephant. So... English, Persian, Vietnamese, Hindi, Urdu (with English subtitles). Produced by Amin Palangi and Billy Marshall Stoneking