A CRIME DRAMA WITH A TWIST: "ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA"

I have, I am pretty sure, written about Nuri Bilg Ceylan before. I have said, if I recall that his art is very much an acquired taste. Back in the day, I hated his films; they seemed to me rather pretentious, without much content, just one of those films that perhaps win so many awards because people cannot really understand what’s going on and thus assume whatever it is, is deep. The thing is, what is going on IS deep. It is just not immediately obvious to the untrained eye. The same goes for all brands of minimalist cinema. It’s a bit like plunging straight into Goethe’s Faust the moment you learn German. However, once you have acquired said taste this film is definitely the one for you. Or even if you just want to try something a little different. I have seen quite a few of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films – if not all of them – and I personally feel that this is his best film yet… Our setting is a small town in the middle of central Anatolia. The steppes stretching out seemingly endlessly look very much like one another, life is tough and the men living there are even tougher. Two cars are driving through a dark, unlit night. But nothing two shifty is afoot. Two men, brothers, have been convicted of murder. The older brother – seemingly more intelligent than his rather “slow” younger brother anyway – has confessed to the murder, all this is fine but there is one small problem. They seem to be unable to locate the body. The suspect claims he buried it somewhere out of town so the police chief, the coroner, the prosecuter (increasingly irritated by the whole affair dragging on so late) the gendarmes and the suspects are rattling on through the night trying to make sense of the older brother’s rather vague description of where the body was buried. “I had had a bit to drink” he mutters apologetically. This is not so much a murder mystery - or rather not the kind of murder mystery you think it is, but I’ll let you discover that as you watch the film – but an occasion to take a closer look at the hearts of men, life in small towns and how very ordinary people cope with extraordinary things that happen in their lives. These lives are not exactly populated with extraordinary happenings, thus the coping mechanisms developed can be… Well you’re going to have to watch and see. First of all, rest assured, there is nothing neither gory nor sinister and supernatural about this film. Well, nothing more sinister than the contents of the human soul and that, I have to agree, can be pretty bad at times. The poignancy with which Ceylan paints emotions and the unexpected places and contexts in which these emotions emerge in all their glory is quite amazing. Of course this poignancy is partly due to Ceylan’s own experience, he himself is a small town boy, the son of a government official so I assume this coupled with his powers of observation warrant largely for poignancy of the film. And something simply has to be said about the cinematography. Ceylan was originally more interested in taking photographs and this is very, very obvious from the beauty of some of the scenes and the framing. There are haunted, beautiful portraits of Anatolia dotted among this very human tragedy. The secret of watching and enjoying this film is to not get stuck on the whole murder thing. Of course the murder (or murders, but like I said I don’t want to give too many details on that one) are important but they are far from being the main thing. Focus on what is going on around them, the characters, their reactions, the mood created. If you do, a whole different film is going to emerge for you, and you will be able to follow the “real” story as it were. I concede that it is slightly hard going, almost 2 and a half hours long and in Turkish but I sincerely hope you give it a spin. There really was a reason for it winning the Grand Prix at Cannes…

ÜÇ MAYMUN / THREE MONKEYS

Now, I am fully aware that the film I am about to review is a supremely “niche” affair. This is a Turkish film by one of the most famous Turkish directors Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Now, as a person I honestly don’t know the guy. As a director one either loves or hates him. Well such is the case for most of his tribe – he’s a minimalist. Now don’t get scared by terminology, you know the kind of film I mean : Minimal dialogue, minimal camera action, minimal special effects if any. Editing is merely a means to go from one scene to another, in short there is very little of a lot of things to the point that it’s surprising there is a “resulting film” at all. Add to that the fact that in quite a few of these films symbolism features quite heavily and the resulting concoction can prove “unwatchable” for a lot of people. I sympathize: I am one of these people. Most of the time. I am also open to change and new information which is mainly why I try my best to attend seminars, classes and the like concerning different areas of the cinema it was during one of these classes that I was introduced to a novel way of looking at the film. Now, I am VERY far from being an instant convert to minimalist cinema but after being introduced a new point of view to the whole affair I decided to try and express my emotions on the matter to you all and see if I could get you to give a go as well.

The story is that of a driver, a modest man and the personal driver of a local politician. One night the above – mentioned local politician has a traffic accident, killing a pedestrian. The elections are approaching and he doesn’t want to “dirty his name” so he asks the driver to take the fall for him. He will pay good money, take care of his wife and son… The driver is a poor man – and accepts. Life in his little home goes on pretty much as usual until his son fails his university entrance exams. Ismail – his son – doesn’t want to re-study he wants to buy a car and be a shuttle driver for a local school. Since the mother doesn’t work and the father’s employer is their only means of support she goes to him for the money even though she’s pretty sure her husband would not approve. The local politician will not only give her the money but professes that he will “do anything for her”. This will have devastating results on each member of the small family…

Now, the thing to bear in mind while watching this film is that it is the story and the story-telling that is in the foreground here. Nothing more, nothing less. Even the story itself is not that original. That’s why I only recommend this film for those of us who actually enjoy the technicalities of a film (and like I said I am not necessarily one of those people!) What is original – and what jars about this film – is the fact that a lot of the theoretically key moments or “big events” of the film are actually shown on screen. We are led up to them and then we focus on the results, leaving the larger part of the work to our imaginations. The other thing I like about minimalist cinema – or rather the examples of minimalist cinema I have actually liked – is the closeness to real life and real people. The story, the surroundings the acting… For all the world you are in a lower middle class household in Turkey not a film set. It gives one the spooky feeling of eavesdropping – this is a little odd but also connects with the voyeur that exists in all of us. Admittedly, being a “new convert” I still find some of the sequences “too long”. Especially since “action” as we are used to is at a minimum and the whole affair is above all psychological. However, if you feel like something different, this is a good quality example – with , I hasten to add, no symbolism. I also want to add that the guy didn't get chosen best director at the Cannes film festival for nothing... Recommended for the adventurous…