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UZAK
Rebecca Kemp, Close-up Film (UK), 28 May 2004
An admirable exercise in filmmaking, featuring a snowbound
landscape of northern Turkey that often looks more like Moscow than Istanbul,
Uzak 's lack of dramatic thread and dialogue leave the audience as distant
from the characters as their relationships on screen. A deliberately hopeless
tale of male loneliness, Uzak (Distant) is a worthy study of modern day
divergence and isolation that is unbearably successful in its recreation
of the desperate.
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a practical and economical filmmaker;
his use of set, props and pace in this his third film is as minimal as
his use of dialogue. Credited as director, producer, writer and cinematographer
for Uzak, Ceylan used his own apartment, furniture, car, friends and family
for the making of the film and in this sense he seems to have consumed
it whole. Indeed this story of a divorced man living a habitual life in
a depersonalised city is based on his own experiences.
Middle-aged Mahmut (Özdemir) is a reasonably successful photographer for
a tile factory, living alone in an apartment in Istanbul , occasionally
sleeping with a woman or watching adult videos. Into his contained and
undemanding city existence comes a call from his country cousin (Toprak)
to ask Mahmut if he can stay with him whilst he looks for work. Obliged
by the family connection, Mahmut lets Yusuf into his house but imposes
his strict rules: use this toilet but not that one, don't smoke in the
living room. As time drags on it becomes apparent that Yusuf may never
find a job and the two men spend their days avoiding each other or sitting
in uncomfortable, and in Mahmut's case obstinate, silence.
Ceylan creates a stifling stage on which these two men silently battle
with each other, Mahmut protecting his property and neurotic way of life,
and cousin Yusuf invading his space with his slovenly, needy country-ways.
To emphasise the stalemate between the two Ceylan never allows the men
to build up a relationship, but lets scenes of them watching television
in silence, Yusuf smoking outside in the cold, or Mahmut taking endless
photographs of tiles whilst Yusuf patters around the apartment, emphasise
the yawning distance. Uzak evokes Samuel Beckett in its bleak, pessimistic
view of life with protagonists who say little on the rare occasions they
do speak, inhabiting a cold and unfriendly world with nothing to offer.
The paucity of dialogue and drama is however peppered with some poignant
moments. Mahmut's detached sexual encounters with women mirror his cousin's
inability to speak to a girl he is attracted to. In what seems like an
interminably long encounter, Yusuf and a female neighbour are left alone
in silence at the foot of a dark staircase rising behind them, as the
camera flits between their half lit faces, willing them to say something.
Ceylan shows he can also create distance with dialogue in a scene where
Mahmut's ex-wife tells him she's moving abroad and as their final phone
call is ended by an interruption from her new husband, the camera stays
with Mahmut, alone, unable to share his pain with his cousin.
In a disturbing and symbolic moment that captures the men's inertia, Mahmut
finds a mouse that has been tormenting him has finally been caught by
a strip of sticky paper laid as bait. On hearing the mouse screech the
two men stand and watch its struggle in the sticky mess, unrecognisable
as its fur clings to its dying body. Although disgusted, the men are riveted
in a bond suggested to them by the mouse's terminal captivity.
Relief from this hopelessness comes when Mahmut drives Yusuf into the
mountains to take photographs and is the only time the men laugh together.
Ceylan uses this sunshine filled episode to convey a lift in the men's
mood as they are released from their self-imposed confinement, also providing
a brief respite for the audience. Otherwise the film is simply a series
of observations on the mundane nature of life, emulating a kind of bleakly
serious version of The Odd Couple.
Uzak has won awards at many film festivals including the Cannes Grand
Jury Prize and joint Best Actor prize for Ozdemir and Toprak (in a tragic
footnote to the film, Emin Toprak, Ceylan's real-life cousin who has appeared
in all his films, died in a car accident before he was able to collect
the Cannes award). The film has clearly made an impression on the festival
circuit, and Özdemir's acting ability is impressive considering that he
is a non-professional in his first role. However, it will be interesting
to see if Uzak's genuinely distant form of realism resonates with a wider
audience.
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