Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Though Ceylan's latest work is described as a movie about police procedural and a detailed trip to recover a corpse, it is intended by Ceylan to be about the psychological/internal/existential journey that the involved professionals (mainly a prosecutor, a police officer, and a doctor) will take during this trip. There are other interesting characters, like the criminal himself and the driver but they are relatively less developed. The film promises a rewarding experience, but this is not the case. Despite the effort to give those characters depth and a believable existential struggle (the whole point of this movie), the result is half-acceptable for the most developed ones (the prosecutor and the doctor, to a lesser degree the driver), at times cartoonish (the officer)...etc
After the first half and especially towards the last third the movie starts to lose focus, some scenes are not needed, some scenes are forced to give some depth (the doctor going through old photos of his ex-wife to "explain" his reaction towards one woman they met on the trip). Though I think it will be criticized but I'm glad that Ceylan left the motive behind the murder almost unexplored, and so is the criminal's character. (At some point it is hinted that he is not actually the killer) This would have even a much stronger effect on the movie if the characters were written with more complexity to achieve the existential trip that Ceylan wanted.

That doesn't mean the movie is bad, but it is not an excellent work. Ceylan still suffers (despite the help from his wife and his friend) content-wise. This is a major problem. Some moments are great and well crafted and executed, those were mostly some mundane ironies that are scattered in the movie (similar to those in climates and distant). Visually the film is stunning (maybe his best).
Visually this movie is very similar to tarr's work (usually I don't compare Ceylan's to Tarr's work but I couldn't escape the resemblance with the Man From London and Damnation despite those being in Black and White). Theme-wise it has a lot of Kiarostamian moments: the landscapes of The Wind Will Carry Us, the falling objects: in "Close Up" an empty bottle, in The Wind Will Carry Us a fruit, here an apple keeps rolling aimlessly and is tracked by the camera. The professionals and even the trailer above itself may resemble Tarkovski's Stalker, though is movie is not even close to Tarkovski's excellent work.

So overall, it is a major step up from Three Monkeys substance-wise and style-wise (less contrasted and less digitally manipulated), but it is not near Distant or Climates. Maybe Ceylan will never be able to make a third great movie again, unless it's a skeleton cast of 2 or 3 unprofessional actors with less ambitious stories, or maybe he won't at all.

A much milder disappointment than Three Monkeys.

Out of Time: The story of a man who forgot about time.

Out of Time - Trailer from Zeke Brizuela on Vimeo.

Check out this trailer of a short film by an up and coming Argentinian film maker named Zeke Brizuela. Looks interesting. Read more about it here.

The subject reminds me a bit of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's film Distant.

Zeitgeist Films

For all of you guys who didn't have the chance to watch NB Ceylan's latest two works: the masterpiece Climates and the visually stunning Three Monkeys. They are both now being released as region-1 (US format) DVD by Zeitgeist Films. Climates was previously released by The New Yorker Video that went out of business around a year ago. The company was supposed to release Three Monkeys as well.

This is the Trailers for both movies:





I always enjoy reading Dan's review about these two works (see links above) but also the great review he wrote about Ceylan's Distant (I read it more than ten times and I enjoyed each reading).

There Will Be Blood

Just watched this latest Paul Thomas Anderson film and it's the latest in a series of so-called masterpieces from well known directors that are not what is claimed, and worse, represents a severe regression in the filmmaker's canon. Like N.B. Ceylan's Three Monkeys and Bela Tarr's The Man From London, this film is a regression for Anderson, and a worse film than Punch-Drunk Love, Boogie Nights, and even, arguably, Magnolia (yes, I know that had Tom 'The Mannekin' Cruise in it)

Simply put- no tale, hammy acting by Daniel Day Lewis, and no character development. It is Anderson's attempt to make a 21st Century Citizen Kane. But he's not Orson Welles.

The trailer:

Bela Tarr's 'Woody Allen' Moment

2007's The Man From London, by Bela Tarr, is the least of his 4 'mature' films I've seen, and for two major reasons.

1) the plot is not just confusing- as many critics claim of films they do not understand- just simplistic and not believable in its own diegetic timeline.

2) Tarr's film steals major visual and thematic elements from his earlier films- Satantango, Damnation, and Werckmeister Harmonies- and in far lesser ways, that it reminds me of Woody Allen's films of the last 17 years, as they mimic his 1977-92 Golden Age.

Along with the disappointment of N.B. Ceylan's last film, Three Monkeys, this pains me to say, but Tarr may be on a long downward slide from here. He just seems to have nothing left to say and no original ways to say it.

I just hope that when it's finally released on DVD, Theo Angelopoulos's The Dust Of Time does not also fail, like Tarr and Ceylan did.

Here's the trailer, and note it's nothing like the film, a clip of which follows below:


MAN FROM LONDON: Movie Trailer - The best home videos are here

Ceylan's Cocoon

I was rewatching Ceylan's first work, I saw it only once few years ago, this 17-min short is the director's dedication to his parents. They are also the protagonists of this dream-like silent work, heavily influenced -if not dominated- by Tarkovsky's work (especially Mirror, and Ivan's Childhood).
It's strange that Ceylan never mentioned Tarko as one of his influences (the musical soundtrack on this short is even like the classical clichés Tarko used).
Cocoon is visually strong, also he gives a lot of attention to "earthy" noises (door squeaking, clock ticking, birds....). These are the first and the second (last) parts of it.

Speaking about Tarko's Mirror, this is a very well crafted scene :note how he refrains from following the kids initially, still looking back... then we know he's expecting the lamp to fall from the table, the lens shifts quickly to a hazy reflection in the mirror, afterwards the camera parallels the movement of the kid walking outside, only to frame the flaming fire by the dropping water. The next B&W scene is a dream that bridges the childhood with adulthood by the the reflection of the young mother as an old lady towards the end.

Wassim

Three Monkeys (Take Three)

Ok, so I got around to seeing the film- a bit of a disappointment. Visually, Ceylan continues to improve, but storywise, this is a second rate soap opera, and a bit too moralistic.

I wrote of it here, and will have a forthcoming review, but overall, a disappointment.

Three Monkeys Redux

Ok, I got the DVD of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest and will watch it this week.

He, like Bela Tarr, seems to get better with each film, so here's to trends.

And here's the trailer: