2 posts categorized "Turkish Cinema"

January 08, 2012

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA — CANNES 2011

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Nuri Bilge Ceylon Investigates
The Impurity of Human Motivation
By Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.comTurkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylon continues his minimalist yet universal exploration of society (in the meta sense of the word) with a fascinating police procedural that values story over plot and character over prejudice.

The mastermind behind such instant classics as "Climates" (2006) and "Three Monkeys" (2008) uses every shaded detail of time, atmosphere, human condition, and verbal and non-verbal communication to tell a quietly complex story about a murder investigation and the imperfect methods of the men assigned to solve the crime.

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Ceylon is one of the world’s few truly gifted filmmakers capable of using film as a broad yet clearly defined canvas for meting out staccato and legato pulses of narrative text and subtext. Patience is a key ingredient to his art. There are always multiple layers of crucial information seeping from the screen. His patience for storytelling matches Michelangelo Antonioni, whose films Ceylon must surly have studied.

“Once Upon a Time In Anatolia” is about the nature of human motivation, and how it folds back upon itself under the microscope of external pressures—whether from co-workers or from a natural flow of events. As in all Ceylon's films clouds play an important role in the landscape. There is nothing showy about Ceylon’s unique brand of cinema. Here is a filmmaker who creates a bond of trust with his audience, who are invited to interact with his films.

ColeSmithey.com

Ceylon’s regular cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki supplies visually intriguing compositions that tempt the viewer to study the story’s dichotomy of rural and industrial landscape. You have the sense of being allowed to see every aspect of the story. Nothing seems to be hidden. The delicacy with which Tiryaki’s camera slowly zooms is a thing of precise beauty.

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At night Doctor Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner) accompanies a group of police officers and a soldier as they drive around the dark outskirts of the Anatolian steppe. The group has with them two incarcerated suspects they hope will lead them to the grave of a missing man. Every distance is remote. Only car headlights cut through the blackness. The young doctor strikes up a friendship with the local prosecuting attorney. Surely justice will prevail. If the body is found, Doctor Cemal will perform the autopsy.

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Police Commissar Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan) lets his temper flare at the uncooperative prisoner who leads the three-vehicle caravan on a wild goose chase in search of a "round tree" by one of the road's many fountains that provide water for travelers in the dark arid region. Prosecutor Nusret (Taner Birsel) reigns in Naci when the Commissar turns violent against the prisoner—not because he cares particularly about the prisoner, but because he understands the demands of the job. The cops joke about food and engage in a bland kind of non-specific repartee that diffuses tension even as it subtlety discloses fragments of personal information. Every character and theme line rings with authenticity. The time-consuming search takes its toll.

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The men stop for food in the middle of the night at the home of man whose beautiful daughter momentarily entrances them. The respect her devastating beauty, yet know exactly how her life will unfold. All life is a cycle. Part of their job is to recognize patterns, even the ones that shame them about their own personal lives.

ColeSmithey.com

The story is about how detectives communicate. It’s also about how entrusted public servants wrangle with overpowering emotions and personal secrets. Anger and sadness are traits to be submersed under rote routines of professional conduct. Their personal sense of justice can be confused and arbitrary. And yet, these men are doing a job that must be done.

ColeSmithey.com

Nuri Bilge Ceylon is a lover of humanity. His great concern for every one of his characters goes beyond their innocence or guilt. He recognizes the balance of both qualities in their actions. As a sociological study, the film is edifying. As a drama, it is at turns enigmatic, revealing, and moving. The cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylon is a transformative one. It is unique and honest. Most significantly, it offers a rare experience to be treasured.

Not Rated. 151 mins.

4 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

July 10, 2005

TURTLES CAN FLY

Welcome!

ColeSmithey.com

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

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America’s Invasion Hit Parade
The Kurdish View
By Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.comOn the eve of the 2003 US-led invasion of Baghdad, a Kurdish refugee camp near the Turkish border is the ravaged site for director Bahman Ghobadi’s trenchant look at a violently oppressed people hoping for salvation in the guise of their mutilated children.

A self-possessed 13-year-old boy named Soren (AKA "Satellite") unites his impoverished community by linking up satellite dishes for his neighbors to receive news broadcasts about the looming US attacks.

"Satellite" makes a living by salvaging landmines that are sold to UN peacekeeping troops. Since many of the area’s children have suffered the loss of arms and legs due to mines, they are predisposed to risking their lives in the dangerous job of locating and disarming the horrendous devices.

ColeSmithey.com

"Turtles Can Fly" is a poignant movie that intimately captures the cataclysmic effects of military despotism on human beings, and children in specific.

Satellite becomes infatuated with an attractive refugee girl named Agrin who wanders into the village with her armless brother Hengov and her blind little boy Rega. Rega is the consequence of a rape by Iraqi soldiers that has left Agrin suicidal. Satellite digests leaflets dropped from American war planes. They read, "We will make this country a paradise… We are the best," he attempts to woo Agrin by swimming in a polluted lake that he insists teems with large red fish.

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President Bush’s televised post 9/11 propaganda misinforms the refugee Kurds, "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." Satellite discovers the physical limits of his quickly adaptable intellect that has him opportunistically saying "hello" to American military invaders.

ColeSmithey.com

The insanity of America’s zooming military occupation takes an effect on the impoverished refugee children who attempt to look at every dismembered object with unfounded optimism. "Turtles Can Fly" is a bleak yet hopeful movie that breaks your heart with an invisible crack that never goes away.

Not Rated. 97 mins. 

4 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

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