Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011)

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Once Upon A Time In Anatolia takes place on a single night with events taking us into the morning. A team of policemen look for the body of a missing man in the Anatolian hills with the help of a man claiming to have murdered him. What follows is a slow burning meditation on life and death, a tale of corruption and sin, family, and desensitisation. Ceylan's film covers much ground in its 150minutes but does so effortlessly and deceitfully as we've come to expect from this master filmmaker.

The film can be dissected into two halves - the first half at night while the search for the missing body drags on, the second takes place during the day once the body has been found and the procedures down at the hospital and court take place. Over the course of this grim night conversations unfurl amongst the bored policemen and prosecutor; some mundane such as arguments over cheese or negligence, and others profoundly personal. Like the nature of the compositions the conversations unfold so naturally and evolve so delicately they become immersive, like eaves dropping on details we're not meant to hear. Ceylan's films have always had a unique magical quality to them - they are at once so simply captured they feel real yet a heightened reality is also present, something other worldly looms quietly. This was most present in 2008's Three Monkeys but here it's taken even further.

Moments such as the grass shaking wildly in the wind illuminated by headlights blended seamlessly with shots of the men's hair blowing equally as strong are spellbinding. Ceylan is a poet of cinema and here he shows men one with a world they don't understand. Characters talk about the horrible acts they've witnessed in their line of work, how they've met men more beast than human, how they can't comprehend how certain people can be driven to such evil. The state prosecutor tells the doctor present that it's good he never had kids when the doctor reveals he is divorced, he asks how can you bring a child into a world where such evil exists? While these conversations are played out a man shakes a tree for an apple and the camera tracks one that falls and rolls down a stream, it tracks the fruit for about a minute while the conversations carry on before reaching the end where a cluster of other apples wait, lost and forgotten. The fruit that represents original sin also represents the lost people of the world, the ones who drift into darkness and evil, or does that count for all of us?

As the film approaches daylight it loses steam somewhat, the film still has more to say but perhaps could have been wrapped up precisely, Ceylan of course is never one known to rush. A common expectation would be for the dawn to bring ease to this brooding tale but with added light brings the story into remarkably darker territory. As we witness the coronary examination of the body it hits home again just how much this story is about children, as we see the boy of the dead man witness his father laid out on a slab with his grieving mother by his side, the prosecutor's words about how children pay for the sins of adults resonates. The procedural nature of the autopsy and the handling of identifying the body showing how the sin of the world has worn these men down, how they've now come to accept the darkest dregs of life as habitual happenings.

As the film comes to a close, the childless divorcee doctor looks out over a playground where the grieving boy and mother walk past, in the background the sounds of the father still being opened and dissected. Like the rest of the film before it nothing needs to be spoken as the doctor's eyes tell it all. We never know the circumstances behind the man's death, who really killed him or why, because that's not important. The fact is that it has happened and someone has to pay for it. Ceylan captures moments of beauty and pain in his film; moments such as the doctor looking through photos seemingly showing a lost love. Moments such as these are greatly moving an reveal the almost intimidating responsive power of this director.

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is a thriller unlike most, crafted with unashamed levels of ambiguity and sitting comfortably next to past greats such as L'Avventura or Blow-Up. It may be too much for some but for those willing to take the trip into Ceylan's brand of tantric cinema the results are pure ecstasy.

Uzak (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2002)

Uzak (Distant) is a painterly slow-burning meditation on loneliness and depression whilst avoiding being depressing itself. A film that covers a large emotional ground while never hurrying, forcing, or manipulating its approach - something that writer/director Nuri Bilge Ceylan does best - his cinema unfolds, observes, it just happens. What we get is a truthful exploration of the human condition but not without some laughs along the way, life after all finds humour in the most absurd places.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a master filmmaker and one of the most exciting artists working in contemporary cinema. His background in photography is evident from the opening wide-angle shot of a small town with a man approaching slowly from the distance - this young man is Yusuf, he is traveling to the big city to find his cousin Mahmut. Yusuf needs a place to stay and he needs a job as his small town is hit hard by the recession.

Cousin Mahmut is a successful photographer living in Istanbul, he is 40years old going through a divorce and is severely depressed as well as alone. With the younger Yusuf arriving on his doorstep you'd think he'd be glad of some company, that Yusuf could help Mahmut live again. The tragedy of Uzak and what it sets out to explore is how so many of us refuse to admit or fail to see our misery and when we can see it we are so often incapable of helping ourself even when the answer stares back at us.

Mahmut is a proud man, a man who's life hasn't worked out quite how he's liked it to. He earns enough through his photography for a tile company but through a brief scene with some friends it is revealed that Mahmut was once more artistically inclined and full of passion, he is now complacent and disillusioned with life and with his art. Yusuf lives in the spare room and by day wonders the streets and docks looking for work, he is a sweet soul and a little dim but it appears he's not looking for work too hard, something Mahmut starts to resent. Through these scenes with Yusuf we learn of his loneliness also, he longs to work on a long distance ship and his cousin asks him if he would be able to cope with the distance and the isolation - both characters know these feeling all too well and live it day by day but do they ever confide or help each other? No they don't.

When Yusuf keeps failing to find employment and becomes slack with some of Mahmut's house rules, the two of them start to grate on one another. In one very funny scene Mahmut is watching an 'artsy' film (Tarkovsky's Stalker) with Yusuf in the room, it's clearly late and Yusuf says he's off to bed. Once Yusuf has left Mahmut changes to an adult channel but later panics and puts the film back on when Yusuf reappears. All along it was a ploy to bore Yusuf and to be left alone - what self destructive and pitiful creatures we can be.

Mahmut's apartment is full of literature, music and film yet all we see is him watching TV whenever he's off work - mainly game shows and pornography. Through this it's clear he's a shadow of his former self, a self we never knew. When we see Mahmut's interactions with his seperated wife we see they still have great affection for one another, the cause for separation never stated yet an abortion is brought up. She reveals she is moving to Canada with her new lover and with this it is clear that whatever joy Mahmut once had started and ended with this woman. There last goodbye over the phone is heartbreaking yet so under pronounced - it's raw and it feels real.

In the end with Yusuf gone, we see both men exactly where they were at the start - sleepwalking through life unable to wake up. Mahmut could have helped both of them if he could remember what it is like to feel but in the end is too far gone. Two men who share a painful loneliness and desperation for human warmth couldn't connect despite being both family and living in such close quarters. At the end of Yusuf's stay they have learned nothing about each other, did they ever want to? Did they even know how? Once Mahmut's ex-wife has gone and we end on a prolonged shot of him sitting, smoking, staring from a bench into the ocean we must ask - what has Mahmut learned if anything at all?

Uzak is an effortless drama that focusses on rather downbeat issues, despite how this review sounds it is a surprisingly enjoyable watch. The scenes of Yusuf bumbling around trying to help Mahmut on his photography assignments are endearing and sweet, Mahmut stepping on his own mouse trap as he scuttles quickly away after eaves dropping on Yusuf's phone conversation is comedy gold also. As expected from Ceylan's work it is also a stunning visual piece of work, the endless snowy landscapes of the locations only add more to this story of modern isolation. Ceylan's film is revealing and insightful in ways that only his films can be. Uzak is slow, full of life and its ugliness, a humane film that is also unforgettable.