BIR ZAMANLAR ANADOLU’DA

You don’t know how it is to be bored to death, doctor. But this is something you will tell your children: Once upon a time, in Anatolia. – This is how the (not so smart, yet quite honest into his simplicity) character of driver Arab Ali explains both the title and the concept of this movie. Time and geographic line define and not only describe the route (to inner discovery but also to the dessert) of different people in a movie which tries to find the identity of a whole society.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan wrote the script (with the co-operation of Ebru Ceylan and Ercan Kesal) and directed an adventure, much different regarding its plot than his latest film, Climates (a love story), yet so similar concerning their narrative style.

The first scene shows a variety of people (policemen, soldiers, villagers, the prosecutor, the doctor) wandering in the night, following the suspect into what seems to be his journey into the darkness of his life.  Whether he is guilty or not, this is something we are not – and by we, I mean the viewers who get attached to the doctor’s role in the movie- very interested in finding out. Even when the dead body is in front of us, we prefer to laugh with the jokes being made, than to really get to know why and how the crime happened. After all, it was a big night and as the Greek poet once wrote: it’s the journey that matters, not the arrival. One hour and fifteen minutes later we’re back in town visiting the hospital to see what the doctor has to say about all this. But above this, we come to realize the burdens of the prosecutor and commissar Naci. 

Ceylan with his work tries to search the heart of his country, the special way in which people are affected by the place.  Huge dessert lands, homes without electricity and dogs ready to bite strangers. Everything seems to be against the presence of humans, or maybe it is they who are against what should be their home. Turkish community as depicted in Ceylan’s movie is a patriarchal one, though the women have a key-role in the way every male hero is acting. Kenan here is supposed to be the father of a child lost forever in its mother’s secret life. The prosecutor also carries the guilt of an affair for which he got revenge by his wife – a pretty painful one.   

Taner Birsel and Muhammet Uzuner will become two of my favourite actors, if they keep up being acting like they do – more with silence than words.

What Trier’s and his friends failed to continue, it’s some directors from the east which succeed to complete. Nature has equal role beside the leading actors and the movie has the perfect rhythm. Theo Angelopoulos or Bela Tarr would be proud to watch another colleague of theirs doing such an excellent job. 

 Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da started the journey to a great cinema adventure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUB8Fuop92I