I was loving this film for the first 30 or 40 minutes.
Wintery small Turkish town. Mongrel dogs skulking a solitary road into nowhere. Wood pigeons cooing off behind. Kids sliding on the ice and laughing as local loony falls over. His lonely sad smile.
Snow falling against classroom window. The kids under a feather as it descends and lightly, delightfully, blowing it back up into above them. The sound of one wet sock drip dripping onto hot coal stove.
Picking of, sucking of, plums in the cemetery. The imploring look of eyes from dolorous donkey to cheeky young boy – back and forth, close-up, soul to soul. The kid’s casual cruelty in flipping tortoise upside down and running off – leaving it helplessly flailing it’s little head and legs. Long grasses swaying moodily in winds.
And so on. Sensual. Very present moment. I was there, taking it all in, hearing every last drop of sound. Immersed into the ordinary ambient peace of an existing natural world. Melancholic but evocative of sweetness. Delight in the delicate, the fragile evanescent presence of life momentarily occurring.
Not much talk or dialogue. Because much watching and listening to be done.
In the 2nd half the film is a campfire scene that goes on too long. Adults sat around breaking into peace with talking and thinking. I suppose this change of emphasis from child to adult is deliberate on Ceylan’s part. But it kind of dispells that childlike spell. The simple sensual world gets lost in darkness, lost in heady thoughts.
Better if this shadowy adult world had been cut right down.
A shorter film – poetic, evocative, lovely – was there within.
Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey
7.5/10
