|
|
Uzak
MILES FIELDER, The Herald (UK), 27 May 2004
There are two scenes in this multiple award-winning Turkish film that
perfectly encapsulate its theme of emotional isolation.
In one, a young man, Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak), recently arrived in the
city from the country (where he and a thousand other fellow villagers
are, having been made redundant, out of work), wanders about a snow-covered
public park in the middle of winter. At first Yusuf smiles at the locals
enjoying themselves.
But as he watches children playing in the snow, friends meeting, lovers
hugging, lonesome Yusuf's smile is replaced with a sad look.
Later in the film, in a second telling scene, Yusuf is with his cousin,
Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir), a successful photographer, who, since breaking
up with his wife has become a melancholy bachelor and with whom Yusuf
is staying temporarily.
Yusuf walks into the lounge of Mahmut's stylish flat, where Mahmut is
watching television. The two men stare at the screen in silence for a
few moments, until, apparently uninterested and as if ready to sleep,
Mahmut switches off the television. Yusuf goes to bed. Mahmut turns the
television back on and switches to a porn channel, where a woman and a
man are having oral sex.
Uzak, which is Turkish for distant, is made up of moments like this.
There are no grand speeches describing the film's theme, no melodramatic
events summing it up. Instead, Uzak focuses on the minutiae of human relationships.
Much of the film takes place inside Mahmut's flat, and although the two
main characters are, for different reasons, insular, Özdemir and Toprak's
low-key performances elicit real pathos. They were rewarded with the best
actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year, but – and this is truly
tragic – Toprak was killed in a car crash en route to collect another
acting prize.
Uzak is a sombre film, but one writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (who
picked up the Grand Prix in Cannes) has subtly sprinkled with humour.
Shortly after Yusuf is installed in Mahmut's flat, the grouch warns his
guest not to stand on the sticky paper mousetrap in the kitchen – and
later, after being inhospitable, steps on it himself. They're an odd couple,
indeed.
Ceylan has said that the microcosm of Mahmut's flat and the hermetically
sealed drama going on within it represents a change he has noticed in
his formerly and famously hospitable country. Beyond that, his film speaks
volumes about alienating city life, which gives this little gem international
resonance.
|
