The Cut (2014) A Film by Fatih Akin

"Transnational displacement is common subject matter at this point for Fatih Akin, so it's odd that despite repeatedly dwelling on the emotional ramifications of such separations, he still hasn't managed to convey a sense of the sheer size, scope, and diversity of the planet. That becomes something of a crutch in The Cut, his decade-spanning, continent-hopping look at the aftermath of the Armenian genocide, because the film's narrative requires that its embattled protagonist, a refugee named Nazaret (Tahar Rahim), navigate a whole slew of unknown territories and political ideologies over the course of a few decades in the early 20th century." Full review at Slant.

Three Monkeys (Üç maymun) A Film by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2008)

The trailer for Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest film, Three Monkeys, left me hoping the talented Turkish auteur had not lost the restrained genius that has made him so distinctive. It includes a host of thriller trailer clichés: ominous flashes of negative, text that detaches from itself frenetically, distasteful solarization effects - in a word, it does not come close to doing justice to the subtle brooding atmosphere of Ceylan's third straight Cannes contribution.

At this point, Ceylan, hotly contagious among fans of high art, has established himself as the contemporary master of domestic tension, almost a Turkish Bergman when taking into account the amount of time he spends silently scrutinizing the emotional complexities of his alienated characters. While Three Monkeys does maintain this thematic bent, the film also introduces some elements that are new to Ceylan, for instance poetic hallucinations (the eerie sight of a deceased child in broad daylight) and cinematographic flexibility (the camera in Three Monkeys frequently spends time scanning faces in close-up or changing shots within scenes, whereas Distant's focus was on wide, prolonged static shots). Also, the film's characters are all well aware of each other's grief but refuse to vocalize their feelings, resulting in a more intense psychodrama than Distant, in which negative feelings were repressed and (just nearly) completely unexpressed.

The film's tension can be attributed to Ceylan's nifty, schematic approach; just about every scene contains only two characters reflecting on unseen wrongdoings, glancing morosely at each other, arguing severely, or lying about a day's events. We only see three people in the same frame in the film's most climactic scene, and those are the three stubborn monkeys that make up the shattered family at the film's center: Eyüp (Yavuz Bingol), the foreboding father who had done time in jail to assist his greedy politician acquaintance and receive a large sum of money in return, Hacer (Hatice Aslan), the deceitful mother caught up in an affair with the politician, and Ismail (Rifat Sungar), the suspicious son forced by the weight of the crisis into committing dreadful acts. Ceylan forges a discomforting quietude within the family, a product of his refusal to show the acts that trigger the dissolution, instead lingering for lengthy amounts of time on the nuances in expression in the solemn faces, the drawn out resonances of Hacer's adultery, Ismail's eventual violence, and Eyüp's shallowness.



Three Monkeys is at the same time a commentary on the greedy nature of politics, the placing of public regard atop the need to take blame for one's faults. This is evident in the character of Servet (Ercan Kesal), the politician whose legal issues are dumped conveniently on Eyüp with money as the saving grace. Servet does not need to worry about his problems with Eyüp available as bait, just as Eyüp does not need to worry about his son's crime when he can simply offer up the punishment to his friend Bayram (Cafer Köse). The mostly minor actors do an outstanding job of manifesting the deep ocean of gargantuan emotions - love, hate, grief, confusion - into a largely wordless spectrum of shadow-eyed facials and tense body movements.

Perhaps the finest achievement of the film however is its technical beauty and tonal singularity. The inherent menace in the script is supplemented chillingly by atmospheric sound design; rolling thunder, rustling winds, crickets, diffused barking dogs, clanking train tracks, and amplified drips create a palpable mood that far surpasses anything a score could have brought to the film. And of course there is the cinematography, which, as is expected from the highly skilled photographer/filmmaker, is absolutely immaculate. Ceylan has crafted a world of shiny, somber faces against huge black clouds, windy terraces overlooking the sea, and wet winding roads containing careless individuals, all adding up to his most riveting piece of cinema to date.

Times and Winds (Bes vakit) A Film by Reha Erdem (2006)

Two years ago, Reha Erdem's film festival contribution Times and Winds, only his fourth feature film, was met with assured praise. This September, Nick James of Sight and Sound took into account the triumphant nature of the film and declared Erdem as one of the emerging talents of Turkish cinema, along with Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Thankfully, Times and Winds deserves the credit it has been given.

A work of striking cinematographic beauty, it depicts a group of children freely growing up in a village divided by five time zones that shift with each call to prayer. The film pulses with the rhythms of a life that is unique to most, even ethereal to some. The forays into schoolhouse montage and voice-over establish a disassociation with the grounded schedules of common life: the young girl recites a lesson on the celestial movement that seems fundamental yet secondary to the procession of life in the Turkish village. Adults carry out routine jobs among the livestock while the children prance spontaneously around the pastoral vistas. Amidst this quotidian simplicity, there is the steady driving force of the Islamic prayers. Erdem portrays the fathers of the village as being one-sided and unfair, always preferring one son over another. This attitude has a direct effect on Omer, the boy who hopes clumsily for his father Imam to die. He shares his wishful thinking with his friend Yakup, and eventually decides that death will not present itself and he must take action himself. Yakup strongly lusts after his school teacher in a childish way that seems inescapably tied to that sexual confusion that exists only during the brief transition from childhood to teenage years. Another boy named Yildiz steals goods from a tree and is whipped repetitively in return by a gruff farmer.

Times and Winds evidently unfolds in an episodic, lyrical manner. These vignettes are paced slowly and assisted by composer Arvo Part's persistently mysterious score. (It's beautiful music, but I believe it's used too often.) In an attempt to familiarize the audience with the village, Erdem takes obvious pleasure in the protracted Steadicam shots that trail the kids through the rock wall alleyways adorned by airy bushes and bundles of sticks. The cumulative mood of the film is rather sobering, but its tendency to toss you around plot-wise doesn't help to create a relationship with its characters, whom are mostly non-actors. Instead, the film just washes over the viewer with all its photographic flawlessness. The sunny hills are irresistibly gorgeous and the versatile crane shots are a welcome upgrade to the usual low budget undertakings of Turkish cinema. While it could use some directorial polish and poetic refinement, Times and Winds is a worthy experience to seek out.

The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite) A Film by Fatih Akin (2007)

German-Turkish director Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven is one of the great films of 2007. He provides a welcome alternative to the trend of intertwining narratives (an approach most notably exercised by Spanish-American Alejandro González Iñárritu) that is breezing through Hollywood currently. It seems that the multicultural directors have the best touch on the method, which is perhaps why Paul Haggis' Crash and Pete Travis' Vantage Point appeared as contrived to the most discerning audiences. Stories riding on so much surprising circumstance and coincidence are already closer to being forced out from the screenwriter's pen than a singular narrative. I am pleased to report that Akin's recent arthouse crisscrosser is an inquisitively believable journey through two dissonant lands: Germany and Turkey.

Six prosaic lives are tested by tragic occurrences that cause them to meet. Told in three parts entitled "Yeter's Death", "Lotte's Death", and "The Edge of Heaven", the film manages to continually surprise every time the suggestive titles come to fruition. The tendency for the film to always be on the move, alternating countries, roadways, and characters, explains this emotionally renewing phenomenon. Akin opens the film with a smooth camera movement through a gas station, introducing Nejat Aksu (Baki Davrak), but keeping his character unexplained. In the blink of an eye, the story of his father sets in motion; we see him, Ali Aksu (Tuncel Kurtiz), trudging down a sexually energized street, the smug look on his face clearly signaling that fact that he is on the market for a prostitute. When he picks one seemingly at random, he returns multiple times in the subsequent days and forges an attraction that is absent of any emotional sincerity. Wanting to keep her to himself, he asks her to come live with him. Acting as a polar opposite, Nejat, who is visiting home, is a warmhearted young scholar who finds a deeper humanism in the now conventionalized Yeter. The father is unremittingly disrespectful to Yeter, who has informed Nejat of her longing for her lost daughter.

Following a beautifully restrained tragic sequence, of which the detached camerawork is honorably sophisticated, the lost daughter's story is told. She is a political rebel in opposition to the globalization of Turkey, and when she gets hold of a gun that is dropped during a riot in a crowded street, she hides it and flees to Germany unscathed. In Germany she meets a young student who invites her to stay at her house with her mother (Hanna Schygulla), and the two begin a curious affair. These two initial sections of the film are insightful and compelling and establish a powerful emotional base that becomes shattered when Akin begins to unravel the drama.

Although at times the story deals with heavy subject matter, the extremely admirable direction never settles for heightened melodrama. Iñárritu's films do this to a gut-wrenching extent, but I believe that Akin's style is all the more respectable for showcasing a sympathetic interest in the power of people. He shifts stories with amazing subtlety, and when you realize that one narrative is beginning to overlap into another, it's tough not to wonder if a regrettable quick lapse into sleep resulted in such causal disorientation. However, it's true that Akin strikes each note (multiculturalism, the effects of globalization, friendship and love, and parent/child relationships) with eloquent grace. The compositions in The Edge of Heaven are also astounding. Akin has a keen sense of what to put on the screen when and and what not to show; his camerawork is awfully pared-down for such an involving drama. In the finale of the film, Nejat has perhaps reached the edge of heaven, gazing out at the other side of the sea that also harbors its fair share of basic human conundrums.

Distant (Uzak) A Film by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2002)

Another exciting director has sprung from the festival circuit producing simplistic yet profound films on a low budget: Nuri Bilge Ceylan. With a number of awards under its belt, Distant, Ceylan's third and most widely distributed film, transports the viewer into a wintry Istanbul where its burnt out protagonist Mahmut lives. Having been left by his wife, he clings to his habitual small apartment life where he continues to work on his craft of photography, however distant it's becoming. His relative Yusuf spontaneously arrives to stay at his place, claiming to be in search of a job. Yusuf recently lost his working at a local factory because it closed down.

Instantly, there is a broad contrast between the two men; country life vs. city life, and gradually more personality differences make themselves known. Yusuf is unaware at first of the challenges that the big city presents, and seems to be in search of a female companion more so than a job. He also scoffs at the Tarkovsky film that Mahmut shows him only to be entranced by the comedy and action films that are elsewhere on TV (in a scene containing an ingenious statement on instant gratification vs. artistic consumption). In this sense, Yusuf is a sensualist whereas Mahmut is a colder-hearted intellectual. Slowly but surely, the film does just what the title states; it further distances its two main characters to the point of emotional isolation.

Ceylan handles this situation with fascinatingly articulate poetic realism. He puts us into the world of the characters as if it were our own, resulting in extended observant camera takes. Working as the director, cinematographer, writer and producer, nearly all of the fine tuning of Distant can be attributed to Ceylan. He displays his natural eye for photography, his understanding of the nuances of mundane living, and his touch for deadpan comedy that withers away into full-blown emotional explosiveness. The bleak Turkish landscape shown on the screen has never, to my knowledge, been photographed with such elegiac purpose. The snowy harbor setting is transfixing and evocative, and the interiors are deliberately humdrum. The growing tension of the story swells to an intentionally decrescendo yet contemplative finale. With Distant, Nuri Bilge Ceylan solidified his position as a world-class filmmaker in the realm of Abbas Kiarostami or Cristian Mungiu. I'm looking forward to his recent Cannes contribution, Three Monkeys.
(Also check out the imaginative Koza, Ceylan's debut short film. It's on the same disc as Distant.)