The 7th feature film from Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan tells the long process of small, provincial policeman who are looking for the body disposed of in the Anatolian countryside, with the murder suspect in tow to help point out the location. The local police force are escorted by a DA and doctor from the city - these souls are seemingly the only people alive in the provincial night.
Whilst on paper the scenario may make it look like a police thriller, it is actually a film about the way life shapes you into being, the difference between rural and urban life. If this film were set in the bustling metropolis of Istanbul or Ankara, it would be disturbed by a city that does not sleep.
The film is slow and long, but in a methodical way. There is a lot of talking, but the dialogue does not always reflect upon the murder and the suspect - two characters indulge in a political diatribe about the possibility of Turkey joining the EU and the relevant pros and cons of such a political move. This makes you thing perhaps this is a film with a dark satire at the center of its premise, yet in the second half it focuses upon the work of the doctor and the ensuing autopsy.
The honesty and openness of death as an essential part of life - the use of a long night's journey into daytime transfigures this a vital component of life itself.
The film is a beautiful work, shot by Gokhan Tiryaki, with some striking cinematography such as an apple swimming down a stream, the wind in the trees being captured as a character contemplates the next step. This marks the film out as a work of art.
As for Ceylan, he has clearly taken a big step in his career. Famous for small contemplative works such as Three Monkeys (2008) and Uzak (2002), he has expanded his ambition to fit this larger landscape in terms of scope and depth, without losing his characteristic traits of deftly depicting masculinity with insight in terms of their behaviour and psychology. This broad and universal appeal has helped mark him out from the crowd, and as a festival and cineaste favourite.
People often mention how Ceylan uses Chekov-ian moments of comedy as people argue over who left a body bag somewhere else; this is a form of naturalism and symptomatic of Ceylan's ear for the rhythm of dialogue - during serious moments people can easily get distracted by mundane and trivial things.
Fittingly, the film has been released shortly after the death of fellow Mediterranean director, Theo Angelopoulos - a director who followed a similar career path from minimalist beginnings into grander masterworks such as Ulysses Gaze (1995) and Eternity and a Day (1998); these works of huge ambition were matched by political comment. Whilst Ceylan has not matched the Greek director as yet, he remains a fearless auteur whose solo vision will never be disrupted.
Once Upon A Time in Anatolia is released by New Wave Films on Friday 16th March on limited release.
Showing posts with label Turkish cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkish cinema. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Thursday, 10 November 2011
The 17th Turkish Film Festival
The Turkish Film Festival is back again in London this year, and will be running from 24th November to 8th December and has moved from a familiar three day event to a full scale two week festival with some brilliant films on show and some wonderful attendees.
Claudia Cardinale stars in the opening night gala film, Being Italian with Signora Enrica, the debut feature from Ali Ilhan - a delightful film about an elderly Italian woman who takes in a young Turkish exchange student. Cardinale is famous for her work with Fellini, Visconti and most famously in Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time in the West. Ms.Cardinale will be in attendance for the Opening Night.
Other highlights include Tayfun Pirslimoglu's Hair which won Best Turkish Film and Best Director at the 2011 Istanbul Film Festival; the debut feature from acclaimed photographer Cemil Agacikoglu, September; Do Not Forget Me Istanbul, a portrait of Istanbul as seen through the eyes of six young International directors and Home, the first feature from actor Muzatffer Ozdemir, best known for his role in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant, for which he won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival.
These fresh offerings from younger voices go hand in hand with the established directors who are on show here, Ceylan himself with Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Dervis Zaim's Shadows and Faces and Sedat Yilmaz's Press.
Whilst other specialist film festivals are struggling to stay afloat, the unfortunate news a few weeks ago that there will be no Birds Eye Film Festival in 2012 came as a shock to many in the London film community, as it was a festival with a unique identity.
London has a whole host of film festivals with a specific genre or nationalistic strain (Korean, Jewish, Russian, even Kazakhstan) - the Turkish festival however, has been running for some years now and is now established as a vital platform for new emerging Turkish film-makers working both at home and abroad. It also has a prestigious award - The Golden Wings Digiturk Digital Distribution Award - which offers a £30,000 prize enabling the winning film to be released theatrically in the UK and Ireland.
Thanks to this prize a film like Bal (Honey) would never have received the great acclaim it did upon its release in April of this year.
There is also a Golden Wings People's Choice Award presented to the most popular film as selected by audiences throughout the festival.
Turkish cinema is in a period of rude health at the moment, thanks in part to the auteuristic pedigree of Ceylan whose new film Anatolia received its world premiere at Cannes in the Grand Prix selection and was up for the Palme D'Or, and also selected as Turkey's entrant for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Bal won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the much celebrated Men on the Bridge (Asli Ozge, 2009) did some good box office and garnered critical attention when released also.
This year's festival will run at the following venues: Odeon West End, Apollo Piccadilly, Rio Dalston and Cine Lumiere.
For more information go to the festival website: http://www.ltff.org.uk/ for details of the schedule and screenings.
Claudia Cardinale stars in the opening night gala film, Being Italian with Signora Enrica, the debut feature from Ali Ilhan - a delightful film about an elderly Italian woman who takes in a young Turkish exchange student. Cardinale is famous for her work with Fellini, Visconti and most famously in Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time in the West. Ms.Cardinale will be in attendance for the Opening Night.
Other highlights include Tayfun Pirslimoglu's Hair which won Best Turkish Film and Best Director at the 2011 Istanbul Film Festival; the debut feature from acclaimed photographer Cemil Agacikoglu, September; Do Not Forget Me Istanbul, a portrait of Istanbul as seen through the eyes of six young International directors and Home, the first feature from actor Muzatffer Ozdemir, best known for his role in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant, for which he won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival.
These fresh offerings from younger voices go hand in hand with the established directors who are on show here, Ceylan himself with Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Dervis Zaim's Shadows and Faces and Sedat Yilmaz's Press.
Whilst other specialist film festivals are struggling to stay afloat, the unfortunate news a few weeks ago that there will be no Birds Eye Film Festival in 2012 came as a shock to many in the London film community, as it was a festival with a unique identity.
London has a whole host of film festivals with a specific genre or nationalistic strain (Korean, Jewish, Russian, even Kazakhstan) - the Turkish festival however, has been running for some years now and is now established as a vital platform for new emerging Turkish film-makers working both at home and abroad. It also has a prestigious award - The Golden Wings Digiturk Digital Distribution Award - which offers a £30,000 prize enabling the winning film to be released theatrically in the UK and Ireland.
Thanks to this prize a film like Bal (Honey) would never have received the great acclaim it did upon its release in April of this year.
There is also a Golden Wings People's Choice Award presented to the most popular film as selected by audiences throughout the festival.
Turkish cinema is in a period of rude health at the moment, thanks in part to the auteuristic pedigree of Ceylan whose new film Anatolia received its world premiere at Cannes in the Grand Prix selection and was up for the Palme D'Or, and also selected as Turkey's entrant for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Bal won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the much celebrated Men on the Bridge (Asli Ozge, 2009) did some good box office and garnered critical attention when released also.
This year's festival will run at the following venues: Odeon West End, Apollo Piccadilly, Rio Dalston and Cine Lumiere.
For more information go to the festival website: http://www.ltff.org.uk/ for details of the schedule and screenings.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Bal (Honey) - DVD review
From Drakes Avenues Pictures comes the DVD release of the 2010 Golden Bear Award winner at the Berlin Film Festival, Bal is the last in the Yusuf trilogy by Semih Kaplanoglu. The writer-director is one of the most revered contemporary film-makers currently working in Turkey, second to Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
The film is set in the isolated part of Northeast Turkey, Yusuf has just started primary school and is learning to read and write. His father Yakup is a honey-gatherer, a risky trade which involves climbing up ropes into the tops of trees where the beehives are. The forests that Yusuf goes to see are full of mystery and wonder, they are shot with this wonderful feel of the light receding from the frame but you know the child is safe with his father nearby.
Yusuf suffers from the social affliction of being tongue-tied and stammer's when at school, yet the strong bond between father and son allows Yusuf to feel at ease and communicate most easily when addressing him.
The fear and ridicule of his paralysis is only heightened when Yakup must travel faraway to a forest in a mountainous area, from which he does not return and days pass forever. Yusuf eventually summons up the courage to go and search for his father himself.
Following in the footsteps of similar European films dealing with missing/returning fathers, The Return from Russia comes to mind, this film forms the last part (yet in reverse order) of Kaplanoglu's Yusuf trilogy serving as the grounding for the lead character as we see him in his infancy. The lead performance from the young actor, Bora Atlas is startling in its strength.
Whilst the film is certainly meditative in its narrative progression, and shot beautifully in the wonderful rarely photographed regions, calling to mind the reflective personal projects of Andrei Tarkovsky - you do get a sense that the slowburn nature of the film did need a kick at some point.
However, this along with this year's earlier Men on the Bridge and the forthcoming Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, from Ceylan (featuring in the 2011 LFF).
The film is released from Verve Pictures on DVD for £10.89RRP and is rated PG, the extras include a trailer.
My thanks to Rabbit Publicity for the disc.
The film is set in the isolated part of Northeast Turkey, Yusuf has just started primary school and is learning to read and write. His father Yakup is a honey-gatherer, a risky trade which involves climbing up ropes into the tops of trees where the beehives are. The forests that Yusuf goes to see are full of mystery and wonder, they are shot with this wonderful feel of the light receding from the frame but you know the child is safe with his father nearby.
Yusuf suffers from the social affliction of being tongue-tied and stammer's when at school, yet the strong bond between father and son allows Yusuf to feel at ease and communicate most easily when addressing him.
The fear and ridicule of his paralysis is only heightened when Yakup must travel faraway to a forest in a mountainous area, from which he does not return and days pass forever. Yusuf eventually summons up the courage to go and search for his father himself.
Following in the footsteps of similar European films dealing with missing/returning fathers, The Return from Russia comes to mind, this film forms the last part (yet in reverse order) of Kaplanoglu's Yusuf trilogy serving as the grounding for the lead character as we see him in his infancy. The lead performance from the young actor, Bora Atlas is startling in its strength.
Whilst the film is certainly meditative in its narrative progression, and shot beautifully in the wonderful rarely photographed regions, calling to mind the reflective personal projects of Andrei Tarkovsky - you do get a sense that the slowburn nature of the film did need a kick at some point.
However, this along with this year's earlier Men on the Bridge and the forthcoming Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, from Ceylan (featuring in the 2011 LFF).
The film is released from Verve Pictures on DVD for £10.89RRP and is rated PG, the extras include a trailer.
My thanks to Rabbit Publicity for the disc.
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