Uzak, 2002
[Distant]
An
impassive man, statically framed in nearly imperceptible long
shot slowly, and laboredly, traverses an untreaded, snow-covered
open field carrying a duffle bag until he emerges in near frontal
medium shot on the other side of the clearing towards a deserted
rural road. It is an unhurried, deliberative image that recalls
the extended final sequence of Abbas Kiarostami's Through
the Olive Trees as the romantically thwarted hero makes his way
down the side of a hill to the area where an off-camera director
has been surreptitiously observing him as he pursued the reluctant
objective of his affection. The understated introductory image proves
to be the first of several referential cues that filmmaker would
incorporate to tell the deceptively simple, yet acutely observed
story of a displaced laborer from the province, Yusuf (Emin Toprak),
who, laid off from his factory job and unable to find new employment
in his economically depressed village, decides to board a bus bound
for Istanbul and arranges to stay at the home of his urbanite cousin,
a successful and cosmopolitan art photographer named Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir),
as he scouts the city for job opportunities in the hopes of being
able to send money home to his aging (and equally destitute) parents
and to lead what he perceives to be an exotic life as a global traveling freight
ship worker (and perhaps more importantly, to permanently leave his bucolic,
insular village). It is a visit that, however polite and cordial, begins to betray
traces of Mahmut's character as well, as Yusuf soon finds that he is locked out
of his cousin's apartment and is forced to wait at the front lobby while the
preoccupied Mahmut, having forgotten Yusuf's planned arrival, stays out into
the late evening. Forced into accommodating a reluctant intrusion into his personal
space, the intensely private and self-consumed Mahmut grows increasingly resentful
and impatient over his aimless and naïve cousin's underformed plans and
passivity towards the execution of his seemingly half-hearted (and invariably
fruitless) job search - a frustration that irreparably escalates when Mahmut
returns from a visit with his hospitalized mother (Fatma Ceylan) to find that
Yusuf had indifferently violated a series of his seemingly innocuous, pre-defined
house rules during his brief absence.
Distant is an elegantly realized, pensive, and hauntingly lucid exposition on
the nature of rootlessness, estrangement, and solitude. From the allusive opening
sequence of Yusuf's unhurried ascent onto a hillside road captured from the static
camera, Nuri Bilge Ceylan creates a meditative - and refreshingly self-effacing
- composition of distilled, concentrated imagery, narrative economy, and reverent
paean to deliberately paced cinema. Ceylan's allusions to Andrei Tarkovsky (both
directly through a conversation with friends, and indirectly, through excerpts
of Stalker and Mirror on television) serve to illustrate Mahmut's innate understanding
of the need (though not necessarily the willingness) for artistic and personal
compromise. The evocative use of the melancholic theme from Theo Angelopoulos'
Landscape in the Mist (as Yusuf rides a streetcar through a shopping district)
reinforces the film's similar exploration into the themes of parental disconnection,
profound isolation, and existential angst. Even the intrinsic, understated humor
that pervades the film becomes a vehicle for a quaint homage in a scene reminiscent
of Darezhan Omirbaev's Kaïrat as the timid, introverted hero casually, but
deliberately, brushes against an attractive young woman on a public bus. In the
end, it is this acceptance of humility, thoughtful sense of place, and embrace
of human idiosyncracy that is reflected in Mahmut's early winter morning reverie
on a park overlook as uniformly indistinguishable cargo ships navigate through the
harbor - an observant reflection of the quiet, unarticulated desolation of
self-imposed alienation, adriftness, and emotional transience - a longing to
experience the familiar against a tranquil sea of faceless, disconnected anonymity.
© Acquarello 2004. All rights reserved.
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An
impassive young man, Sadik (Sadik Incesu), bides his time smoking a cigarette
before running up the street to greet the postman as he delivers the mail,
then crosses the median to a neighborhood café to read the long-awaited
results of his final examination over a cup of tea. A filmmaker named
Muzzafer (Muzaffer Özdemir) arrives at his parents' home in the province
in order to scout locations for his next film: a personal project that
his cheerful, lackadaisical father, Emin (Emin Ceylan) matter-of-factly
(and amusingly) describes as the kind of film that never makes any money.
Meanwhile, Muzzafer's mother Fatma (Fatma Ceylan) arrives home with his
young cousin, a charming nine-year-old boy with an infectious smile named
Ali (Muhammad Zimbaoglu), and curiously proceeds to deposit an unboiled
egg into the accommodating boy's pocket before sending him off to school.
Preoccupied with a forthcoming federal land survey that could lead to the
re-appropriation of a tract of woodland that adjoins the family farm to
a public access road - an area that the stubborn old man had deliberately
left underdeveloped during a period of transition from village government
in order to retain the tall, sheltering trees that seclude the land from
traffic (and perhaps indirectly, the encroachment of civilization) - Emin
travels with Muzzafer to visit the disputed area where Muzzafer soon realizes
that the tranquil, idyllic woods would make an ideal setting for a scene
in his film. Meanwhile, the restless Sadik begins to accompany Muzzafer on
his scouting trips, hoping to land an adventurous job with the filmmaker that
will allow him to leave the uneventful town and relocate to Istanbul. Upon
arriving at the home of a prospective elderly actor, Muzzafar and Sadik
begin to film test shots of the subject, but soon find themselves at an
impasse with the old man over his commanded salary. With the project
financially stalled by the high cost of hiring actors, Muzzafer then
turns his attention to his reluctant parents, attempting to sway them into
acting in his film for free through the screening of a roughly edited home
movie that he has lovingly and tenderly assembled during the course of his
previous visits home.