Elephants Dream - Plot and Explanation

Plot and Explanation

The movie was made mostly as an experiment, rather than to tell a certain story, and therefore has a strong arbitrary and surreal atmosphere. It features two men, Proog, who is older and more experienced, and Emo, who is young and nervous, living in a miraculous construction referred to only as "The Machine". Proog tries to introduce Emo to The Machine's nature but Emo is reluctant and argues about The Machine's purpose. The creators originally intended for the movie to show the abstraction of a computer.

Bassam Kurdali, Director of Elephants Dream, explained the plot of the movie by saying:

"The story is very simple—I'm not sure you can call it a complete story even—It is about how people create ideas/stories/fictions/social realities and communicate them or impose them on others. Thus Proog has created (in his head) the concept of a special place/machine, that he tries to "show" to Emo. When Emo doesn't accept his story, Proog becomes desperate and hits him. It's a parable of human relationships really—You can substitute many ideas (money, religion, social institutions, property) instead of Proog's machine—the story doesn't say that creating ideas is bad, just hints that it is better to share ideas than force them on others. There are lots of little clues/hints about this in the movie—many little things have a meaning—but we're not very "tight" with it, because we are hoping people will have their own ideas about the story, and make a new version of the movie. In this way (and others) we tie the story of the movie with the "open movie" idea."

The original title was to be Machina but was dropped due to pronunciation issues.