sakarkral Reviews

Sibel (2018)

Disastrous Representation of Countryside, including Women

[3/10 · 11 March 2019]

This film reminded me of Mustang, another award-winning movie about the oppression of women and other evils of the Turkish countryside. Although the facts regarding this issue is true, cinematic representation of these facts requires literal artistry and Sibel is a total failure in this case.

Technical details aside (dialogues are badly written, acting of the amateurs are slightly better than terrible, while some villagers have strong rural accent, some others speak perfect Istanbul Turkish etc.), the movie has serious flaws from the beginning to the end. The movie aims to depict the condition of women in Turkish countryside, and problematizes the social mechanisms within. However, these social mechanisms are mainly women-borne, so as to say that "a woman is a wolf to other women."

This is the exact point this movie totally fails. Their "goal" for shooting this movie appears to be singling out their "fellows" in these rural communities (those who have potential to be bourgeois, though stuck in the countryside) and motivate them to fight back. Against whom? Against the oppressive women around them, instead of building a feminist consciousness and solidarity altogether.

Apparently this is all because the directors' strong bourgeois codes do not let them get into (and grasp the essence of) the real rural life, so they had no chance but to represent what they already had on their minds about it.

Capernaum (2018)

"Think local, exploit global"

[9/10 · 21 January 2019]

This movie is the most powerful defense for children's right I have ever seen. One choice of the director is the ultimate signifier of the importance given as such: She plays the advocate role herself. And she does it well: She has no mercy for human rights violation. Although she knows and thoroughly demonstrates that the main reason for children's suffering is poverty, when it comes to parents' responsibility to their children parental poverty is not extenuating circumstances.

However - and rightfully for sure - her strongest accusation is against to the modern concept of citizenship in the globalized world of 21st century. The movie clearly exhibits that if the pieces of paper that are called "passport" or "ID" are not "valuable" enough (for whatever "valuable" means), people are not considered as respectful HUMAN BEINGS anymore. They are bought, they are sold, they are used, they are "transferred" etc... They are COMMODITIES. This is the long-celebrated "globalization" process.

Pity (2018)

Let the Greek Weird Wave last forever!

[8/10 · 15 October 2018]

What if Haneke's "The Seventh Continent" was shot by Lanthimos? Pity!

Haneke makes very good movies. Their only problem is they are not movies. Instead, they are sociological articles written by moving images. Whether intentionally or not, they fail to trigger emotions in the viewers. They just tell what they want to tell. Greek Weird Wave, on the other hand, catches the viewer with its absurdity and "injects" its position. And this is what I call "art."

Pity is a must-see about the emptiness of the middle class life flavored with a very well-tuned humor.

The Wild Pear Tree (2018)

A step backwards in Ceylan's cinema

[7/10 · 4 June 2018]

It has been 21 years since Ceylan shot his first feature film Kasaba, whose main theme was an intellectual young man's desperate, family-stuck life in the countryside with no way out. After this film throughout his film career he focused on different themes as well of course, from middle class criticism (Climates) to film noir (Three Monkeys). But, being from Turkey, eventually in his last movies he returned to the countryside tales again. Especially this movie, The Wild Pear Tree, seemed to me as if Ceylan suffered from a partial amnesia and forgot that he shot the movie Kasaba. So he blended this "brand new film idea" with his recently developed film aesthetics and here we have The Wild Pear Tree.

In his first movies Ceylan barely had a story, he only had "themes". The rest of the movie was wonderful photography and this is what he got famous for. Then, founding clever collaborations, he learnt how to tell stories as well. But the question here is: does he really have a new story to tell? Turkey has changed a lot since Kasaba, but Ceylan's representations look like they are here to stay eternally. For instance, while Ceylan still hold on to the "intellectual stuck in the countryside" stereotype, intellectuals in the Turkish countryside either made it to the metropolises or they are replaced/outdated by the emerging religious elite.

So instead of telling a new story, Ceylan seems like he chose to "garnish" what he already has, with neverending dialogues unattached to each other. Dialogue with the girl, dialogue with the mayor, with the businessman, with the writer, with the police friend, with the imams and with this and this and this. Kind of a video game, one "countryside monster" at a time. So I think this movie is a rococo remake of minimalist Kasaba.

So if you tolerate the theatrical lines in the first dialogues, the movie is a nice one to see. But in comparison to the last 2 movies of Ceylan, this is certainly a step backwards (and surprisingly, this backwardness is evident also in the photography).

Soldiers: Story from Ferentari (2017)

A bit messy but so real

[7/10 · 16 April 2018]

I saw it in Istanbul Film Festival, and the strength of the movie was crystal clear to me: At least 10 people (who are supposed to be from the intellectual, liberal community of Istanbul) immediately left the hall by the time the two guys got close to each other (even before they were nude or kissing). So that was not totally because they were homophobic, it was mostly because this homosexual relationship was not aestheticized as they were used to (blue is the warmest color etc): The gay couple was two poor, not-so-handsome guys in a dirty, shabby flat. (And one of them was even a Roma, can you believe it?)

So this is what I expect from realist cinema: change the game, invade the comfort zones and shock the prejudiced.

I also want to note the similarities to a Turkish movie that drew my attention. The movie is Gelecek Uzun Sürer ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2033997/ ) which tells the story of a Turkish sociologist going to the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir to write her thesis on Kurdish requiems. Similarly again, Like Adi, the protagonist in that movie too was looking cold-hearted and reserved too. I think the message is obvious: The science is always "cold" even when it is in a "love story" with its scientific object.

Wajib (2017)

Gathering the "Imagined Community"

[8/10 · 12 April 2018]

Humorous drama is the most novel weapon of the war-torn communities. Instead of in-your-face depiction of sufferings and tragedies which leads to a quick rise-and-fall of emotional reaction (sigh, tsk tsk, and go on as before), humorous drama tackles, tickles, and trigger the thoughts of its audience. "Et maintenant on va où?" by Nadine Labaki was a very very successful one in this sense. Now another female director from another Arabian country raises the bar as high.

Firstly, the invitation delivery is technically a very good idea to take the audience to a tour among the portraits from the Christian Arab population of Palestine. This way, while cutting every scene short and painless enough to keep the viwever attentive, the sense of continuity doesn't get disrupted as if watching a talking-heads documentary.

But what is more important is the content. There are two main characters, the father and the son. We see the father telling lies (doesn't matter white or not) to comfort fellow citizens, or compromising with the occupants etc. On the other hand the son is unbending in his political and even asthetical standards. But, as time passes by, we understand how hard is the father's struggle to unite his "family" (read as his "nation") again back in Palestine. All his flaws are actually developed to achieve this aim. And yes, his son's discourse is flawless, because he enjoys being free from the hardships of the everyday life in Palestine and has no concerns about the reunion of the Palestenians in the fatherland.

So apparently the father represents the practical, real Palestine whereas the son represents the ideal. But the clash of these two is not at all theatrical, nor didactical. The dialogues are so real that in the end the viewer does not feel herself "injected" by the director's ideas, she just starts to rethink about and compare her ideals and practices.

Roza of Smyrna (2016)

good for educative purposes

[6/10 · 23 February 2018]

It would have been far more fair if the title were chosen as "Roza of Clichés". Death after saying the last love words, transformation of a typical hardliner etc... Nothing special. I got particularly frustrated that despite its title the number of scenes set in Smyrni/Izmir is too few. Seriously, why does Roza's story end up in Istanbul, a city which she has no connection, instead of a dramatic return to Izmir?

So the movie is an average one in any sense.

But since it focuses on the lies of nationalist history-writing and promotes the Greek-Turkish friendship, I think this kind of movies must be produced even if they have many flaws like this one. It will help teenagers of both countries overcome the effects of brainwashing of their states.

By the way, the tourist guide in Izmir was Ömer Kavur, who was actually a well-known movie director. Nice reference.

The Gulf (2017)

A cinematic language so unique that no one understands

[5/10 · 12 January 2018]

Körfez / Gulf is a brave yet unsuccessful attempt to build a cinematic universe with a highly symbolic language. I think the reason of this failure lies beneath the tension between the science fictional setting and the realisticism of the characters. The characters of this movie are so ordinary and familiar that they are "too real" for such a symbolic narrative. Therefore, we sway from a realistic movie to a Felliniesque athmosphere from scene to scene and what we get is mostly a sense of dizziness.

Moreover, we the viewers want to get into the film's universe to form our opinions regarding the issues raised, but throughout the movie we happen to follow only the main character who barely talks, free from any personal motivation, even does not give any sign of emotion. In fact he is more like a leaf in the wind, constantly distorting our focus among the events taking place all around the city.

As a result, the symbolic language of the movie can be understood by no one, as if we hold a draft of the scenario in our hands, written in our language but with a very bad handwriting. So instead of "decoding the symbols" we put more effort to "decipher the handwriting", and hence we end up by getting only some bits and pieces about the movie, by no fault of our own.

Knifer (2010)

Yet another problematic realism

[5/10 · 12 January 2018]

Boredom, the feeling of emptiness, lack of everyday life aesthetics, surroundedness by one-dimensional people etc are the common characteristics of the "realist" movies about lumpen working class. And they are all cursed with the same drawback: They all give the impression that someone put some cameras around and asked these working class people to live their daily lives as normal, and just because these people were aware of the cameras they were reluctant to show their very reality and in the end they performed what was expected from them. This is what makes an average realist movie even worse than a bad documentary: Realism tries to mimic the reality but reproduces the personal observations of the screenwriter and the director, while the documentaries have their own techniques to grasp what cannot be seen by a banal observation.

Good realist movies overcome these drawback in several ways: They tend to show the variation instead of the generalizable, they raise questions on behalf of the characters or the viewers, they even dare to suggest strategies to them.

And unfortunately this is not a good realist movie. It's a mere representation of reality and its final impression on the viewers is nothing but a reproduction of their prior opinions.

The Student (2016)

Right Question, Wrong Answer

[6/10 · 13 October 2016]

Nowadays Russian cinema is more political than ever. And its political word is not shy, it frankly declares war against either bureaucratic or societal corruption (or both), as we can see in Leviathan, Durak, and this film. But the most dangerous enemy in this war, is the scope of the enemy. If you define the whole corrupt society as something to destroy, who will be your allies in this war? No one, for sure. You're as lonely as Don Quixote in his delusions.

Actually, the idea of "the Holy Bible in a human's body" as a character is striking, strengthened by the undeniable references. The viewers are forced to observe how religious fundamentalism can threaten the society, especially when the people around cannot see the big picture, cannot imagine what will come next and feed the beast naively as if donating to the church.

But as I mentioned above, despite the power of its criticism this movie too is unfortunately flawed with the problem of being incapable of providing solution, like similar others. The film rightfully asks: "This religious fundamentalism is poisoning us! What is the antidote to it?" But the answer is perfectly oxymoronical: "We need idealist individuals, but hopeless at the same time due to their loneliness..."

So, according to me it's clear that these "pessimist-idealist" characters represent the directors themselves. They can foresee what's coming, they want to do something, but when they look around they realize that they don't have anyone to cooperate with. So, disappointed with this loneliness, they get critical of the society much more than the problems the society is experiencing. So, contradictorily, what we as the viewers have in the end is not a motivation for action, but a reflection of the pessimism of the director dictating us to sit and smile cynically at the inevitable self-destruction of the society.

I, Daniel Blake (2016)

From Britain to China, workers' very own solidarity is their social security

[9/10 · 8 October 2016]

This movie caught me by my heart, like every other piece by Laverty- Loach cooperation. It is not a thriller, there are no twists, no peaks of emotions. It shows the naked reality of our everyday lives with its great pains and humor at the same time. But, the "banality" of these great pains is the strength of the movie, it shows how every encounter with the system is the time we face the reality of the system and look for someone who will give a hand us to survive it. Of course, this is mostly valid for the working class. The film softly depicts that it is not a socialist propaganda, because when truly shown the reality itself unveils as a socialist propaganda.

But the film is not another documentaristic presentation of the everyday life of a worker, as it also shows how to cope with all these we experience. It is the formation of a solidarity with others like us, the woman in the queue, the Chinese in the factory, the black in the warehouse, the clerk at the office... We are already connected, even with those in other continents. Once we see someone shouting with his writing on the wall, we should shout with him with our voice. If one of them writes a letter, another should spread its word.

A shot in the head of the Britain's social security system, a great call for solidarity.