Mahmut, a 40 year old independent photographer, is a "village boy made good" at least professionally in the big city - Istanbul in this case. After his wife leaves him, he falls into an existential crisis. Then comes his cousin Yusuf, who left his native village after a local factory closed down, effectively unemploying over half the local men. He looks to Istanbul for salvation: a job on board a ship sailing abroad, at once exciting and crucial to supporting his family in the desperately poor village. The distance between the two men is apparent at once, and becomes increasingly pronounced. Whereas Mahmut is adusted to big city life and suffers from many of its neuroses, Yusuf is a lonely, excentric country worker with annoying nervous and hygienic habits, and a sick mother back home he must somehow support. This intimate drama was filmed in the director's apartment in Istanbul, using all his furniture, appliances, rooms, car and so on as the film's props. The actor playing Yusuf is actually the director's real-life cousin, and the actor playing Mahmut is an actual friend, a non-professional actor
Since I was in Turkey last week I thought it was finally time to discover this movie I have for ages and never got the courage to watch. Courage I say because I knew this would be a slow movie. Typical slow arthouse movie and well the cover was not the most attractive (you shouldn't judge a movie by its cover bla bla bla...) But this movie won the grand prize at the Cannes festival in 2003, the critics were all excellent and I never saw any Turkish movie before
Well it is soooooo nice Defenetly slow but it has to be, this is actually important, I wouldn't have liked it otherwise, it creates a all atmosphere and goes with the state of mind of the characters. It is a drama but not really sad, also with some funny touches here and there. The story is simple but touching and very deep, almost philosophic. The acting is the best I have seen in a long long time, both actors are amazing, the personalities of the characters, their relation ships, the confrontation between 2 worlds and their contrasts, between the modern Turkey and the old Turkey... The movie is full of details, carefully thought, beautifully directed... Really one of the kind Best Arthouse movie I have seen for quite some time Only the end could have been a bit better but that is often the problem with arthouse movies
Overall this movie defenetly deserves the prizes it got and both actors should have won an oscar for their stunning performance They both really got into me...
Only warning I can give you is not to watch it if you dont stand slow movies, but if you want something deep, this is the one
Wed Jun 25, 2008 12:16 am
(you shouldn't judge a movie by its cover bla bla bla...)
