|
|
Modern
master in the old style
S.F. Said, Daily Telegraph (UK), 21 May 2004
The triumph
of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's 'Uzak' at Cannes last year was overshadowed by
the shocking death of its star. Here, the Turkish director tells SF Said
how he draws his inspiration from the golden age of art cinema
It's easy to imagine Uzak being
an undiscovered masterpiece from the 1950s or '60s. With its stark, unhurried
beauty and its search for meaning and connection in ordinary lives, it
seems to belong more to the era of Tarkovsky, Ozu and Bresson than to
our own.
But this is newly-minted work, discovered at Cannes last year, where it
won the Grand Prize. It's the third film by 44-year-old Nuri Bilge Ceylan
from Turkey, who is emerging as a modern-day auteur as artistically driven
as any in history.
"I don't make films to earn money," he says. "I try to
give a meaning to my life, first of all. That's why I make cinema."
Ceylan didn't start out as a filmmaker. He was a photographer first, and
made his debut feature at 39. His inspirations, he freely admits, come
from the golden age of art cinema and from literature. This is a director
who gets more excited about Chekhov and Dostoevsky than Starsky and Hutch.
Ceylan freely admits that the main character in Uzak is based on himself.
It's about a photographer and would-be filmmaker who lives alone in the
big city. He is successful and well-off, he doesn't lack friends or lovers,
but he feels distant and cut off from everything around him. When a cousin
from his village comes to stay, his solitary urban existence is thrown
into sharp relief.
"Feeling melancholy was a problem for me for some years," says
Ceylan. "I found many things quite meaningless around me. I could
do anything - I had money, I had knowledge - but I didn't feel the urge
to do it. The character in my film is this kind of person. He lost his
ideals. Not because he cannot reach them - he can easily reach them -
but he doesn't have enough motivation to do it.
"I think it's a kind of sickness, maybe a result of city life. You
know that you lost something, but you don't know what."
The film is full of images of quiet desolation, from the snowy streets
of Istanbul to the half-capsized ship that lies in its harbour. Its title
means "distant" in Turkish, and it suggests a state of disconnection
that Ceylan believes is an unavoidable part of modern city life.
"It's spiritual distance," says Ceylan. "The distance between
his soul and objects, people, all the world.
"A philosopher named Ibn Khaldun suggested that people should come
back to the rural life, where you have to help each other. In the city,
you can easily create a kind of life where you don't have to help others,
and you don't have to ask anything from others."
All this might make the film sound austere, yet it's also very funny.
There's a priceless sequence in which the photographer is gravely watching
Tarkovsky's classic Stalker. His country cousin grows bored and goes to
bed. The minute he's gone, the photographer abandons Tarkovsky and sticks
on a porn video instead.
Such little gags are the heart of this film: small-scale, human comedy
that shows up our niggles, pretensions, self-deceptions. It's a story
told through intimate actions and gestures, rather than speeches.
"I think people lie all the time," says Ceylan. "They never
tell the truth. Underneath, there is always another reality, not available
in dialogue. That's why I prefer to use gestures and expressions and situations;
saying what the film's about with dialogue is not convincing for me."
The same was true in the golden age of art cinema, but how is Ceylan able
to make this kind of movie in today's climate?
It's largely down to his unique working method. Uzak had a crew of just
five, allowing him complete control. He is in a position no Hollywood
director could be, for he has sole responsibility for everything on the
film, even paying for it all himself.
"I never asked for money from other sources," he says. "I
always put the money myself. On my first film, I put all my money in it.
It won some prizes and TV sales, so the money doubled. I put all the money
again in my second film; it doubled again. I feel free. I don't have producers,
nobody's expecting anything from me."
Of course, this means that he works on ultra-low budgets - his debut cost
only $15,000 - but he turns these limitations to his advantage. Lacking
money for camera effects, he learned how to make stunning compositions.
Instead of actors, he casts his films with friends and family, giving
his work a realism and depth that actors would struggle to create.
"At the beginning, I was a bit afraid of professional actors,"
he admits. "I didn't know if my film would even look like a film!
I didn't want to risk it, so I used amateurs."
The performances in Uzak were powerful enough for these non-actors to
win acting prizes at last year's Cannes. It was a poignant triumph, however,
as the man who plays the villager - Ceylan's cousin Mehmet Emin Toprak
- had just died in a car crash.
"He was newly married," says Ceylan. "He had bought a cheap
car. He went to the Ankara Film Festival in this car, because he won a
prize there. He drove all night to get back and show his relatives. I
told him on the phone that we had been selected for Cannes. He was very
happy; he said, 'I will have my honeymoon on the Croisette.' But he couldn't."
Uzak's victory was no sentimental gesture; it was many critics' favourite
film. Its success puts Ceylan on a par with his heroes, and he is now
recognised as an auteur, whose work has just been accorded the honour
of a season at London's National Film Theatre. So does he feel any less
melancholy?
"I think so, because I found an aim," he says. "Cinema
is an endless and transcendental activity. It's a tool for a search for
meaning. A good tool."
|
