274. Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s eighth feature film “Baglilik Hasan” (Commitment Hasan) (2021) (Turkey), based on his original screenplay: An interesting study of a Turkish male farmer growing apples and tomatoes preparing for a Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca with his wife, a dream-come-true trip for her

"You think you can go on a pilgrimage and come back clean as a whistle? Only God can forgive you, sir." 

--Turgut, an honest former employee of Hasan, branded as a thief by Hasan, when Turgut procured less price from a buyer of Hasan's produce, a buyer who was only ready to pay that lesser sum

 

Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Semih Kaplanoglu are the two most important internationally recognized contemporary film directors who make films of very high standards. 

Commitment Hasan is the second film in a row from Semih Kaplanoglu (it follows the 2019 film Commitment or Baglilik Asli) with the key word “Baglilik” in Turkish language (or “Commitment” in English) in the titles of both films. Kaplanoglu watchers can assume this film is possibly a part of a second trilogy in the making–the first one being the Yusuf trilogy of “Yumurta” (Egg) (2007), “Sut” (Milk) (2008), and “Bal” (Honey) (2010), made in reverse chronology of Yusuf’s life. All the five films are original tales/screenplays of director Kaplanoglu, with Honey winning the prestigious Golden Bear for the Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival. After the Yusuf trilogy, Kaplanoglu made Grain (2017), a science fiction film in black and white in English language, which won the best film award at the Tokyo film festival, but faced a possible undercurrent of opposition from the pro-GMO lobbies that led to poor distribution in many developed countries. Kaplanoglu’s interest in farm life, agriculture, apiculture and horticulture is evident in his body of work—mainly written by him with a few exceptions. 

The farmer Hasan (Umut Karadag)  is a calculating man, ensuring
that he got the best part of his father's property by going to court,
while alienating his brother

The two “Baglilik” films are comparable studies to each other but not connected. The first is a character study on Asli (a Turkish affluent, working lady) being attitudinally transformed by the actions and life of her baby-sitter (from a lower-economic strata). The second film is a character study on Hasan, a calculating male farmer transformed by his wife Emina’s considered advice, who finally has her dream wish of a pilgrimage with her husband to Mecca looming on the horizon, after ensuring that there are no debts to be paid and seeking the blessings of Hasan’s near and dear ones before undertaking the pilgrimage. Both Emina and Hasan seem to be made for each other, squeezing money out of every little transaction they make. Emina, despite all her flaws, wants to make the perfect pilgrimage with her husband and be blessed.

Hasan's wife Emina (Filiz Bozok) drives hard bargains with
poorer folks than her, but wants her husband to seek forgiveness
from those he has wronged, before going on a Hajj pilgrimage

There are remarkable common elements in the two “Commitment” films. In both films, it is a female character that is the catalyst for change, not a male character. This is very significant within a male dominated scenario of Muslim Turkey. The second and the more trenchant element pronounced in Commitment Hasan is the importance of forgiveness in Islam, which was underscored in the recent Iranian film Ballad of a White Cow as well. In the Turkish film, it is a key male figure that has been wronged and refuses to forgive the wrong-doer; in the Iranian film it is a key female character that in a similar situation refuses to forgive those who request forgiveness. 

Is it dementia or is it more than that? 
Hasan is not recognized by his brother Muzaffar, on meeting
him after 2 years

The two brothers, one seeming to not recognize the other,
captured in silhouette by cinematographer Ozgur Eken, as he
had done in certain scenes in Kaplanoglu's earlier film, Milk

One can note the influence of Andrei Tarkovsky’s films in those of Semih Kaplanoglu (the shot of rear head profile of Tarkovsky’s mother sitting on the fence in Mirror reprised in Kaplanoglu’s Milk) or the sudden rains in Tarkovsky’s/Zvyaginstsev’s films reprised as an unreal rain of rotten apples in Commitment Hasan. A shepherd, who Hasan encounters for the second time, this time on the road, tells him that Tugrut, Hasan's former diligent worker, who Hasan is hoping to meet is waiting for Hasan at the coffee-shop. Earlier in the film, Hasan had been rude to the shepherd for letting his sheep graze on his land without permission. Surprisingly for Hasan, the shepherd knows Hasan is preparing to go on a Hajj pilgrimage and possibly even conjectured the reason Hasan wants to meet his former worker. Kaplanoglu thus infuses elements of magic realism and unusual abilities in personalities poorer than Hasan to read Hasan’s mind and purpose. There are extra-ordinary aspects of Kaplanoglu’s original screenplay that connects the chopped tree in Hasan’s dream, the shepherd’s comments while sitting under the tree that is not chopped as dreamt by Hasan, and the chain of events that follow. Kaplanoglu expects the viewer to connect the dots and get the larger picture of repentance and its importance before seeking a blessed outcome of a costly pilgrimage. 

The differences between the films of Ceylan and Kaplanoglu are very thin. Kaplanoglu’s religious commentary is obvious for the viewer, while Ceylan prefers to discuss religion obliquely (e.g., the concept of free will discussed by two imams in The Wild Pear Tree). 

Kaplanoglu’s films have slightly more interesting performances than those of Ceylan. Both directors take great care with the cinematography (the giant tree in Commitment Hasan and Ceylan’s The Wild Pear Tree image are remarkably similar as are the water-well sequences in both films). The final sequences of Commitment Hasan with the two brothers are visually not far removed from the end sequence visuals of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life—but one film ends in silhouette shadows, the other in light. Kaplanoglu’s Milk had employed the silhouette effect (see my review on this blog) which is not surprising as the cinematographer of the two Kaplanoglu films is the same person: Ozgur Eken. 

Finally and very importantly, both directors do not use music on the soundtrack of their films, which make their filming so refreshing compared to most other films from other parts of the world. There is heightened use of natural sounds but their films are almost bereft of composed music, unless the script requires it.

P.S. The film Commitment Hasan won the Best Foreign film at Sao Paulo International Film Festival; the Best Cinematography Award at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival; and Audience Awards for the Best International Film and the Best Actor at the Golden Rooster Awards, China. Kaplanoglu's earlier films Milk; Honey; Grain; and Commitment have been reviewed earlier on this blog. The other films referred in the above review: the Iranian film Ballad of a White Cow; Tarkovsky's Mirror;  Malick's The Tree of Life; and Ceylan's  The Wild Pear Tree have also been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the names of the films in the post-script to access the reviews of that particular film.) 

251. Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s seventh feature film “Baglilik Asli” (Commitment) (2019): An interesting study of the modern educated woman, motherhood, and family ties in a fast developing Turkish economy

The poster captures the essence of the film--
the child is the fulcrum of the tale,
with the mother almost absent in the frame

Film directors and screenplay writers Semih Kaplanoglu and Nuri Bilge Ceylan are the leading lights of Turkish cinema today. Their contributions have understandably resulted in Turkish films being considered among the very best in the world in recent decades. Unfortunately, Kaplanoglu’s previous film Grain made in 2017 has been totally neglected by most cineastes, even though the film won the top honor at the 2017 Tokyo film festival and was made in English on a subject that ought to interest a larger educated film-going global public. It possibly antagonized the powerful lobby of private sector involved with agricultural genetic engineering that effectively curtailed the film’s distribution and publicity worldwide, similar to the case of the Cannes-award winning European film Little Joe (2019). Grain was a departure for Kaplanoglu, not just for venturing into the world of science fiction but for leaving the recognizable Turkish geographical territory for an indistinguishable one, set in a near-future time frame.

Asli (Kubra Kip) has a happy marriage, financial security
and a child--but wants more

Semih Kaplanoglu’s film Commitment marks a u-turn for the director from Grain. In Commitment, he returns to a very identifiable Turkey, its contemporary status, and the Turkish language. Five of his earlier feature films (he had made six)  focused on male figures, markedly in his Yusuf trilogy comprising the films Honey, Milk, and Egg, though women had secondary but important roles in those films.  Only his second film, Angel’s Fall, primarily focused on a woman. In Commitment, too, he returns, after four films, to focus once again on women.

Turkey, like Russia, is largely located in Asia and less in Europe. Both countries, however, prefer to be identified as European than Asian (e.g., the denizens of the city of Vladivostok situated in Asia). Turkey, in recent years, has been making a bid to be a part of the European Union, disregarding its Asian connection and heritage.  The richer sections of Turkey’s population are rapidly moving closer to European life styles, while the poorer sections still retain the Asian traditions in their social lifestyles. 

Asli (right) hires Gulnihal (Ece Yuksel).to take care of her baby
while she returns to her job as a banker

In Commitment, Asli (actress Kubra Kip) is a well-to-do banker in her late twenties or early thirties, who has given birth to her first child and wants to return to job at the earliest, and attempts to regain her pre-childbirth physical allure. She is not always able to take care of her child, dislikes breast feeding her child, neglects the indoor flowers in her house, and cannot cook well enough to please her husband (she serves cold potato salad of the previous day to her husband when he returns from work). For Asli, her career and her looks are more important than her family responsibilities.  Even her gynecologist doctor does not approve her returning to work soon after childbirth and dislikes her requests for medication to reduce her lactation for the sake of maintaining her appearance.  Asli represents the richer middle class of Turkey yearning to mimic European lifestyles and objectives. Kaplanoglu’s Commitment underscores the fact that despite the wealth of the nouveau-riche, the upper middle-class nuclear families in Turkey are clearly missing self-fulfillment.

In contrast to Asli, the contrasting socio-economic elements of Turkey are embodied in Gulnihal (actress Ece Yuksel), essentially from a village background. Gulnihal is hired by Asli as a babysitter-cum-domestic help to look after her child as she returns to her life as a city banker. On her return to work, Asli finds that she has been given a less important position in the bank following her return from maternity leave than the one she held before. Yet Asli hangs on to the less-attractive job, despite being downgraded. On the other hand, Gulnihal also works for Asli’s family as she needs the money though she would rather be with her own child, almost the same age as Asli’s. Gulnihal knows her child is in good hands—her mother-in-law.  Gulnihal, a young mother herself, dotes on Asli’s child as her own and even breastfeeds Asli’s child without seeking permission.  Gulnihal brings to the Asli household food prepared by her mother-in-law (a typical Asian family gesture of goodwill transcending economic barriers) that Asli’s husband appreciates assuming it was prepared by his wife. Evidently, Gulnihal is relatively a happy individual unlike Asli who is a lot wealthier than her.

Asli's life lacks the true joy of being a mother,
enjoying a good marriage, a child, and a job as a banker

The film is also a study in family relationships.  The film presents multiple subplots relating to the family members of Asli (her parents and siblings and their feelings towards her), the family of Asli’s husband (his parents and their relationship towards him) and finally Gulnihal’s relationship to her husband, mother-in-law and her own child.

Asli gifts Gulnihal a jacket--the economic ploy
of gaining affection of her employee

Add to all this there are political commentaries relating to Turkey’s recent past history (a newspaper or journal that continues to publish despite its dwindling readership, is one example) that Turkish viewers might comprehend better.

Commitment is a film based on an original script written by Kaplanoglu himself. The strengths of the film lie in the script (a male scriptwriter dealing with so many female viewpoints) that is complex and yet a delight for astute viewers, the direction of a very talented filmmaker, the crisp cinematography of Andreas Sinanos and finally a very good ensemble cast. The initial visual of the film (which would perplex the viewer) is replicated at the end where the significance falls into place. 

This critic viewed the film in a packed auditorium at the International Film Festival of Kerala which possibly did not have a single Turk in the audience. That audience loved the film and was clapping away after the film ended. (The director and crew were not present and, therefore, the reaction of the audience was spontaneous and genuine.)

Asli and her husband have a meal at home--the food
becomes an important tool of non-verbal communication

Commitment was Turkey’s submission for the 2019 Oscars in the foreign language category. But it did not earn the nomination even though the film’s screenplay and direction are commendable. Nuri Bilge Ceylan pips Kaplanoglu in international stature because the former has succeeded in infusing internationally accepted literary connections, while Kaplanoglu (with the exceptions of Grain and perhaps Honey) has made films that Turkish audiences would relate to more than international ones. Despite this, Kaplanoglu and Ceylan are filmmakers, whose every new film is well worth the wait.

P.S.  Commitment is one of the author's top 20 films of 2019. It won the Best Director award at the Bosporus (Bosphorus)  Film Festival. Kaplanoglu’s three films Grain (2017), Honey (2010), and Milk (2008) have been reviewed earlier on this blog. Significantly, two other major women-centered films made in 2019, Vitalina Varela and Beanpole were made by male directors/screenplay writers and have been reviewed on this blog. (Click on the names of the films in this post script to access the reviews.)

228. Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film “Ahlat agaci” (The Wild Pear Tree) (2018) (Turkey): A slow-paced, contemplative stunner, yet another Ceylan tale of an adult male member within a traditional family, touching on several contemporary problems in Turkey

Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the most distinguished filmmakers alive and The Wild Pear Tree is arguably one of his best works to date, currently on show at the Denver Film Festival after its premiere at Cannes in the competition section earlier this year. If the viewer is patient to absorb a 3-hour film with lots of loaded conversations and meaningful visuals, the hours spent would be well compensated.  More so, if the viewer is well read and perceptive. It is a film that encompasses social, political and theological thoughts without being too obvious. Remarks made in passing are not easy to ignore in any Ceylan film, less so in this one.

Sinan, the graduate, reads at home rather than look for work

On a very simplistic level, a young man Sinan returns home after graduating in a distant college to his home town after some years.  He realizes his school-teacher father Idris has slid into a compulsive gambler, accumulating debts. His mother Asuman keeps the home running with a combination of tact, practicality and help from her neighbours.  Asuman wants Sinan to earn a living now that he has graduated. Sinan slowly distances himself from his parents. Sinan, who has neither a definite career goal nor a life partner in mind, wishes to first publish his book that he describes as “quirky, auto-fiction, meta-novel, free of faith, ideology or agendas.”  As an unknown author without any money to spare, he has to find financial support to get it printed.   The title of the film The Wild Pear Tree is the title of the book Sinan wants to publish and he does get published eventually.  As the film progresses the symbolic importance of trees is underlined at crucial places within the film visually by the Ceylan’s constant trusted cinematographer GokhanTiryaki. A wild pear tree growing in isolation, bears fruits, just as Sinan has earned a graduate degree. It is still a gnarled tree unlike popular pear trees, just as Sinan struggles for fuller acceptance within his family and community. 

Sinan finally understands his father Idris, who he acknowledges never beat him 

Sinan gives a copy of his book to his mother Asuman, acknowledging
her role in his life

Sinan with his girlfriend minus her head scarf and her tresses blowing
behind a tree

Those who have been exposed to Ceylan’s previous works will spot the common structures of Ceylan’s tales: the father, mother, and son trio in The Three Monkeys (2008); the several husbands and wives recalled by male characters in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) including an unforgettable comment in that film,   “You don’t know how boys suffer here, without a father. It’s the kids who suffer most in the end, doctor, it’s the kids who pay for the sins of adults..”;  and the see-sawing  relationship of a husband and wife in Winter Sleep  (2014) overtly caring and respectful to each other, taking great care not to tread on each other’s toes. All the films are  based on original scripts written by Ceylan and his wife Ebru Ceylan, sometimes working with a third co-scriptwriter; in the case of The Wild Pear Tree it is Akin Aksu,  who additionally acts as one of the two debating Imams in the film. (When this critic had asked director Ceylan on his wife’s contribution to his films, soon after the release of Winter Sleep in a film festival “question and answer” session, Ceylan indicated that he was doubtful if his wife would work on his next film as she felt Winter Sleep was way too lengthy. Evidently, as in the case of all the wives in Ceylan’s films, luckily for us, she has continued to work with her husband in this equally long film: The Wild Pear Tree).

The Wild Pear Tree is structured around Sinan’s one-to-one interactions with several men (the town’s mayor, a wealthy sand merchant, a local author of repute, a former classmate,  two Imams, and his father Idris) and  two women (his mother and his girl friend). The town’s mayor, in his encounter with Sinan, emphasizes that his office is open and has no door and yet his actions seem to be contrary to his speech (an indirect comment on Turkish administrators). In the interaction with the sand merchant, the businessman acknowledges that he has indeed supported cultural causes, if it helps him in indirectly in his business. Conversations reveal a lot. Jobs for graduates are not easy to come by, “Education is great, but this is Turkey” . The film includes a conversation between Sinan and his former classmate who had no option but chose a career in the police, where he has to brutally beat up a friend who is rounded up as a protestor.  

Scene of despondency in Ceylan's The Wild Pear Tree

Similar scene in Ceylan's earlier work  The Three Monkeys

But Sinan does publish his book and present copies to his parents. But the film is not about this accomplishment—it is only a turning point to the bigger story of the film: Sinan’s gradual appreciation of his parents and their love towards him.

The high point of the film is Sinan’s accidental interaction with two Imams (Islamic priests).  Sinan encounters the worthies stealing apples from a tree that does not belong to them and cheekily throws stones at them without revealing his presence to see their reaction.  The tree here is not a pear tree, but the roles of trees in the film are not merely decorative. While you wonder about the possible connection to the tree in the Garden of Eden, the conversation between the Imams and Sinan (who has by now revealed himself) move on to free will in Islamic theology. In negation of the free will concept, most conservative Muslims constantly use the phrase ”Insah Allah” (if Allah wills) just as conservative Jews and Christians say “if it be Thy will” or Hindus refer to the role of  “Karma” and “Atma.”  The long conversation as the trio walks towards the town after picking of the apples can be heard clearly without interruption and the same sound level while the camera of Tiryaki captures the entire walk from varied distances and perspectives. Often the dense script of The Wild Pear Tree can be linked to works of the Turkish Sufi mystic Yusuf Emre and Russian literary masters Chekov and Dostoevsky.  Director Ceylan is considerably influenced by Chekov, as per his own admission to this critic, during a public question and answer session.

Has Sinan's father committed suicide?

There are three occasions when trees make their presence felt in The Wild Pear Tree: once when the Imams pluck the apples that do not belong to them; once when Sinan sees his father had fallen under a tree with a cut rope dangling from it, a perfect suicide scenario; and once when Sinan kisses his girlfriend using the tree trunk for privacy. And all of them are important structural points in the film.

Ceylan, his wife Ebru and cinematographer Tiryaki are a constant talented team who add on other members as key crew members in each film. In The Wild Pear Tree, Ceylan uses a short segment of the 14 minute Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor repeatedly with very good effect--a work with religious implications that has been used by Coppola in The Godfather in the baptism sequence and even by Jimi Hendrix in Lift Off.

Without a doubt, The Wild Pear Tree is one of the most important films of 2018, it also happens to be Turkey’s submission for the Oscars.  The only caveat: it requires from the viewer considerable patience and attention to savor the tasteful details.

P.S. Detailed reviews of three earlier works of Ceylan:  The Three Monkeys (2008), Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) and Winter Sleep (2014) appear on this blog. (Click on the names of the film in the post script to read those reviews). The Wild Pear Tree is one of the author's top 10 films of 2018.

217. Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s film “Grain” (Bugday) (2017) (Turkey), in English, based on his original screenplay co-scripted with his wife: A sci-fi film on an agricultural scenario that could be real in the near future, with theological understatements

Grain is a very important film of 2017. 

It is an important film for several  reasons.  Globally, very few feature films have dealt with agriculture as the focal point. In India, several important films were made on social themes related to agriculture—Mother India (1957), Do Bigha Zameen  (Two acres of land) (1953) and Upkar (Good Deed) (1967) are examples.  China’s Red Sorghum similarly dealt with society more rather than agriculture. Even the celebrated Russian film, Dovzhenko’s Earth (1930) dealt with social issues of collective farming rather than agriculture per se. Semih Kapalonglu’s Grain is a rare feature film where the focus is more on agriculture and science, and less on the social fallouts. A rare film that could be compared to Grain in content is Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green (1973)—a Hollywood film on a bizarre industrial response to alarming global food shortages.

Prof Erin (Barr) finally stumbles on an underground store of true, uncontaminated
wheat seeds, collected by ants that could revive natural agriculture
in uncontaminated soil.
(The rough diagram indicates the typical ant-storage architecture, according to Kaplanoglu,
which unfortunately is not explained to the viewer in the film)

Grain is notable because the film highlights the viewpoint of those who oppose the cultivation of genetically modified agricultural crops known as GMOs. GMO crops are those crops that have their DNA artificially altered by a process that does not happen naturally. The artificial process introduces genes from a different species or organism into the natural crop, boosting the ability of the altered crop/organism to survive diseases, insect pests, fungi and even extreme climates.  More than half of the countries within the European Union have banned GMOs until long-term studies conclusively prove these to be safe for long-term human and animal consumption. The pro-GMO lobby asserts the modified crops are safe and necessary to feed the increasing populations. The controversy has led to many products sold in the market to be clearly marked as either “Organic” or “non-GMO” for the consumer who cares to consume safe farm produce. Most GMO crops are grown on soils treated by chemicals necessary for such GMO cultivation. Chemical contamination of soils where GMO crops have been cultivated is another growing source of concern highlighted in the film Grain.

Like the 2022 setting of the 1973 film Soylent Green, Kaplanoglu’s English film is a sci-fi film that is set in the near future.  In the film Grain, GMO crop cultivation is the accepted norm for the majority of the population presented on screen and the private sector that develops and promotes GMO crop cultivation is a formidable and unrelenting force if one cares to challenge it.  Soils have been contaminated by the associated chemicals required to grow GMO crops.  Immigrants from less-endowed nations crowd “processing” centres hoping to be accepted by the richer countries even if they have to deal with its strict policing. People die of strange epidemics and when they die their bodies don’t rot or create a stench. This indeed is a dark subject fit to be made in black and white rather than in colour.

Opening sequences of multi-ethnic immigrants seeking better food and life
in countries with strict policing and controls

Electro-magnetic "walls" keep undesirable immigrants away from the land of plenty

Kaplanoglu is a known admirer of the films of the acclaimed Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.  Kaplanoglu’s earlier film Milk , a constituent of his semi-autobiographical Yusuf trilogy, had a sequence where the protagonist’s mother  is sitting on a fence just as Tarkovsky’s mother  did in Tarkovsky’s  famous autobiographical film Mirror (You could refer to the review of Milk on this blog showing that scene).  There are several sequences in Grain that will remind a cineaste of Tarkovsky’s reflective sci-fi films Stalker and Solaris and even the theologically imbued final work Sacrifice, with a lone tree in a barren landscape.

Grain’s original script, written by Kaplanoglu and his wife Leyla Ipecki, is not a typical sci-fi film. Beyond the sci-fi text is an overt layer of theology that is remarkably close to the films of Tarkovsky and perhaps even Kubrick’s 2001-A Space Odyssey. In an interview with this author, Kaplanoglu revealed that the inspiration for making this film came from a chapter/portion of the Holy Quran called Khef or the Kahf (cave) Sura . The entire film Grain questions the wisdom of human beings tinkering with nature, what the Creator of earth provided and the fallouts of such scientific meddling.

Stark beauty of Anatolia (Turkey) provide the location for the filmmakers
where people in the film die suddenly from unknown epidemics

The film is not about disparaging conventional agricultural research involving hybrids and products of varietal cross breeding but those specifically about tinkering with natural species to create man-made species, and mindless destruction of natural resources in its wake for the sake of profit. The film Grain attempts to interconnect the life in a grain of wheat with life in humans, and how even lowly ants instinctively try to collect and preserve naturally occurring non-modified organic wheat grain for their own species’ survival. The argument the film present is notable absence of the fictional “n” particle missing in GMO crops but present in naturally bred crops.

The Prof (Barr) comprehends the importance of non-contaminated soil
and natural organic farming devoid of chemicals

Grain is also important as the director Kaplanoglu and co-scriptwriter Ipecki try to contrast science with spirituality and theology. The end product can befuddle many and yet offer food for thought to those viewers who can pick up the details of spiritual metaphors, visual and verbal, that pour in cascades.

The story of Grain revolves around a seed geneticist Prof Erol Erin (Jean-Marc Barr, a French/American actor) who lives in a fictional city in the near future, the inhabitants of which are protected from multi-ethnic emigrants with electro-magnetic walls. “Erol” in Turkish means “brave.” For reasons unknown, the city’s nearby agricultural resources have been hit by a genetic crisis. In an internal meeting at the headquarters of the corporation that employs the geneticist, he learns of a fellow scientist who wrote a thesis on “Genetic chaos and the N particle” about the recurrent crises affecting genetically modified seeds is no longer employed by the corporation.  In pursuit of this elusive scientist named Cemil Akmann (Ermin Bravo, a Bosnian actor), Prof Erin meets up with his daughter, who is silently communicating on the computer in a language unknown to the professor, living alone in a huge house in disrepair and apparent neglect. A word that appears on her computer screen is ELOHA (the Hebrew name for God). Prof Erin sets out to meet the fellow scientist in a perilous journey and does find him. The journey, though totally different from Tarkovsky’s Stalker, has several visual references to the Russian film masterpiece. There are exquisite shits of the Anatolian landscape in Turkey captured by cinematographer Giles Nuttgens adding hues of mystery and awe in equal measure, somewhat like the desolate word of the Dead Zone in Stalker.  In Stalker, there is a stray dog that inspects the sleeping travellers; in Grain, a wolf inspects the tent of the sleeping Prof Erin. In both films, there is only a thin line that divides dreams and reality. In Grain, a child converses to the professor in the night in a dream sequence and then disappears under equally strange circumstances into the darkness. (Dreams play significant roles in two very important films of 2017: Grain and the Hungarian film On Body and Soul.)  After meeting Akmann, Prof Erin prefers the life style of Akmann and chooses not to return to the city.

Two scientists, Cemil Akmann (Bravo) and Prof Erol Erin access
the non-contaminated soil that can grow true organic crops and fall asleep
after transporting it to useful locations for safe use

The film even includes a visual of burning bush that will strike a chord with viewers familiar with texts of the three Abrahamic religions. The Burning Bush on Mount Horeb  (mentioned in the Book of Exodus in The Bible) is a bush that is never consumed by the fire and Moses is directed by God to remove his footwear as per the ancient religious texts, as he approaches the bush, while tending Jethro’s flocks. But is the Professor actually encountering the burning bush/tree or is it a dream? Those who have read the religious texts will associate the Burning Bush as a holy ground from where God speaks to Moses.

The film Grain begins with ultra modern electro-magnetic walls to keep out undesirable human beings and ends with a sequence where Akmann and Prof Erin spend time inspecting a stonewall, removing a stone here and there to peer through the gaps in the wall to glimpse Paradise. As in the end of 2001--A Space Odyssey, the final silent spectacle speaks for itself.  Kubrick was an atheist; Kaplanoglu is not.

Sleeping among growing crops, like a child in a mother's womb--touches of Tarkovsky

The two scientists team up

This is a film that is important for viewers familiar with the GMO debate.  The pro-GMO enthusiasts will debunk the science in this English film, which is a Turkish-German-Swedish-French-Qatari co-production.  According to the director, the film has been wilfully kept out of certain important film festivals that wanted to initially screen the film by the influential pro-GMO lobby. In spite of this, the film won the top award at the Tokyo film festival. The film was shot in Michigan (USA), in Germany and in Turkey. Visually the film is stunning in its stark beauty—an antidote to colour and natural flora that one encounters in commercial cinema. The subject itself is an antidote to the prescription of a better world as seen by the private sector corporations for us.

Whether one agrees with the basic scientific premise of the film or not, Grain is definitely one of the most important films of 2017, arguably the most ambitious work of Kaplanoglu, especially for any reflective viewer with either an interest in science or in theology/spirituality.

P.S. The film Grain won the Best Film award at the recent Tokyo Film Festival and is included among the author's top 10 films of 2017. The Kaplanoglu films Honey and Milk have been reviewed earlier on this blog. The Tarkovsky films Solaris and Mirror, mentioned above, have also been reviewed earlier on this blog.  The Hungarian film On Body and Soul  has also been reviewed on this blog. Turkey did not submit the film to compete for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar as the film was primarily in English. (Click on the coloured name of the film in this post-script to access that review)

175. Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Winter Sleep” (Kis Uykusu) (2014): Top-notch contemporary cinema that will satiate a patient, intelligent viewer

Winter Sleep is one of the outstanding cinematic works of 2014.

Winter Sleep is a daunting 196 minutes long movie and could put off an uninitiated, immature viewer craving for action, sex and thrills. The Turkish director Ceylan, speaking to a packed audience that had earlier stood in long, winding queues on a humid December morning in Trivandrum city in India to view the award winning cinematic work and glimpse the accomplished director, during the International Film Festival of Kerala, India, stated with a note of apprehension “I hope all of you slept well last night as my film is more than 3 hours long.”

Interior lighting that embellishes the film

Winter Sleep, as in the case of the director’s previous two films—Three Monkeys and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia—proved one fact, it was a work of a contemporary master of cinema, while requiring a viewer’s undivided concentration to savour all the multifaceted morsels of delectable cinematic treats the film offers in the form of amazing performances, cinematography, choice of classic western music, and last but not least impressive script and direction. Winter Sleep deserved the two awards it won at the Cannes film festival—the Golden Palm for the best film of the festival and FIPRESCI prize for the content.

Winter Sleep is a film about several subjects of conflict and their resolution moulded into one tale, constructed with immaculate care.

The Script and the Scriptwriters

The husband-wife team of Ebru and Nuri Bilge Ceylan has been responsible for the last three masterpieces of director Ceylan. In all the three films, they have developed and presented varied types of husband and wife relationships. (Their collaboration is quite like another notable contemporary screenplay collaboration team made up of the Russian film director Andrei Zvyagintsev and scriptwriter Oleg Negin on their respective last three Russian masterpieces that culminated in Leviathan, a film that competed with Winter Sleep at Cannes and had to settle for the Best Screenplay Award, losing out on the top award to the Turkish contender).

 

The fascinating bit about Winter Sleep is that a real life husband-wife duo have come together to write about the fictional see-sawing relationship of a husband and a wife, who in this film are not cheating on one another and on many counts can be well considered as admirable individuals and perhaps from certain perspectives even as a devoted couple.

Husband Aydin (Bilginer) and wife Nihal (Sozen)
in delicate hues of light and shade

The husband in Winter Sleep is a retired actor named Aydin of certain national repute. He has co-inherited, with his sister, a boutique hotel in a fascinating natural rocky setting of Cappadocia in Turkey attracting international tourists.  Aydin’s wife is Nihal, an attractive young lady, who is evidently not as financially secure as her husband, whom she had admired in the past as an actor of repute and has been married to for a while.  Nihal now finds Aydin to be “an unbearable man.” They have no offspring.  Apart from helping run the small hotel, Nihal takes a proactive interest in the improvement of a local school and its affairs. Her husband has apparently never shown interest or an inclination to help improve the functioning of that school, which has caught the attention of his wife. He is busy writing a column for a small newspaper with limited readership, cocooned in his study filled with books and memorabilia of plays and films that he was associated with or liked and dreams of writing a book on the history of Turkish theatre.  He has even named his hotel “Hotel Othello.” The script of the film shifts gears with the arrival of an electronic mail from a female reader of Aydin’s column. She respectfully requests Aydin’s help in improving the deplorable conditions of a school in a not-so-distant village by either providing direct monetary help or by Aydin, as a respected citizen, contacting influential government officials to provide more financial resources for the school.  Aydin, who has never been interested in supporting Nihal’s pet school, suddenly wonders if he should respond positively to this distant admirer of his column.  What follows in the film, provide sufficient details to show the cracks in the marriage of two otherwise admirable educated Muslims, Aydin and Nihal, both having diverse social acceptance by different sets of people. Unlike George and Martha of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where the husband and wife spewed venom at each other, in Winter Sleep, Aydin and Nihal are overtly caring and respectful to each other, taking great care not to tread on each other’s toes.  Even the most hurtful comments made by Aydin’s sister Nacla towards her brother are gently-spoken, well-chosen words though sharp as knives. One unforgettable line from Nacla to her brother is “I wish my level of self deception was as low as yours.”   So, too, are those of Nihal addressed to her recently divorced sister-in-law---subtle words and inflections of speech that drive home the intended critical message, without seeming to be ugly, even to the ears of the hotel‘s main employee who was in earshot. And like the Albee play (made into a memorable Hollywood film by Mike NIchols) there is reconciliation at the end, but in a quite unusual manner  for the average Muslim male ego one often associates with the contemporary Middle East.

Mature performances are the mainstay of the film

This critic, who was able to throw a couple of questions at the director, during a post-screening public interaction, specifically asked Ceylan about his three film long collaboration with his wife Ebru in scriptwriting--all of which resulted in three consecutive major award-winning films at Cannes. The response was revealing and startling. Ceylan stressed the fact that Ebru an accomplished Turkish actress (she also acted in Ceylan’s early films Distant and Climates) and filmmaker had taken to scriptwriting very well. Ceylan explained that he himself was influenced by literature, specifically Russian literature and that Winter Sleep is very similar to Anton Chekhov’s short story The Wife. Ceylan, who was influenced by Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence when he was a young man, evidently continues to develop and construct scenes reminiscent of the Swedish maestro. While developing the script, Ebru kept reminding her husband Nuri Bilge that the script was way too long and the length needed to be reduced.  Nuri Bilge Ceylan finally decided not to reduce the length as all the small details were important for him. As a jury member at Cannes, Ceylan recalled he wished Michael Haneke’s lengthy Austrian film White Ribbon could go on and on as it was great cinema just as he wishes certain badly made 80 minute long films would end quicker than their intended full duration. With remorse, he added to this critic, Ebru, his wife, might not work on a film script with him again after this decision to retain the film’s length and its myriad details. He added that he found women were stronger than men intellectually.

This critic decided to read the Chekhov story and compare it with Winter Sleep.  In the Russian story there are similar characters and a parallel ending, when you compare it with the film. In the Russian story, the lead character wished to write a book on the history of railways, while in the movie the lead character Aydin wishes to write a book on the history of Turkish theatre, which both pursue in the separate creative works. But more importantly, both works look closely at the social divide, in Russia (in the short story) and in Turkey (in the film). The social divide leverages the emergence of the fissure in the husband-wife relationship in both the movie and short story and therefore serves as an important sub-plot in both tales.

Social Commentary of Chekhov and of the Ceylans

In Winter Sleep, as in the Russian short story, the social divide is all pervasive. The landed gentry live in comfort concerned only whether their tenants pay their rents on time and do not hesitate to take corrective action if they are not paid, blind to the financial conditions of their tenants. The Ceylans, in their script, weave in the reactions of children and old women in the family of the tenants (an aspect Chekhov never dealt with) deprived of their TV by the owners because the rents have not been paid. For Chekhov, the peasants were hit by famine; for the Ceylans, it is a population who sought refuge after calamities decades ago. The Ceylans’ script even details the reaction of the landed gentry to the smelly socks of a tenant, oblivious of the fact that the poor tenant has walked miles to make a token payment.  Even the employees of hotel treat the less financially supported  tenant with disdain by bringing small female slippers for a male adult tenant, who has left his muddy shoes outside, when Aydin asks the employee to bring slippers to protect the visitor’s feet from the cold floor.  The boiling anger of the socially deprived folks towards the well-heeled landowners reminds one of Dostoevsky’s literary works, just as a swooning young boy in Winter Sleep reminds one of passages describing an epileptic in The Idiot. In Winter Sleep, the husband Aydin passing value judgements on the lack of cleanliness of the poor is contrasted with his wife Nihal who is a naive do-gooder who senses the pain of poorer sections of society. Both have differing attitudes and perspectives of the poor. Nihal does painfully realize that “hell is paved with good intentions.”

Aydin writes his column while sister Necla (background) provides bitter criticism

Shakespeare in Winter Sleep

There is no Shakespeare in Chekhov’s story but Ceylan’s love for Shakespeare goes beyond the name of the hotel in Winter Sleep.  There are two references to Richard III in the movie. The title itself connects with the famous line of the play “Now is the winter of discontent...” and towards the end one of the minor characters verbally attack Aydin with the quotation from the same play “Conscience is but a word that cowards use devised at first to keep the strong in awe; our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.”

Winter Sleep may not be an obvious treatise on conscience of the rich and powerful but on some reflection the film is indeed on this subject.  It is not without reason that the Ceylans have called the film by that name and introduced Richard III’s lines into the script.

The ambiguous, reflective visage of Nihal (Melisa Sozen), the wife,
 at the end of the film

Religion in Winter Sleep

Turkey is a Muslim country and it is inconceivable to make a realistic feature film without touching on religion.  In answer to another pointed question from this critic on the references to religion in the film, Ceylan noted that intellectuals worldwide are not worried about religion. In the film Winter Sleep,   the rent defaulting tenant is an Imam, a religious figure, who curses the inconsiderate rich landlord under his breath, while literally going the extra mile to grovel and appease his landlord. The Ceylans’ script makes Aydin realize that his roles on stage as an imam were all wrong after his brief interactions with his tenant imam. The former actor Aydin is taunted by his acerbic sister Necla as she describes him as a Muslim who never goes to a mosque to pray and yet writes about the importance of cleanliness by the devout.  Another taunt by Necla that deeply hurts Aydin is “Philanthropy isn't tossing a bone to a hungry dog. It’s sharing when you are equally hungry.”  And by stark contrast, the Chekhov short story has no mention of religion.

Ceylan, the Director, and Animals as Allegories

The cinema of Nuri Bilge Ceylan has increasingly used animals—the role of dogs in Once Upon a Time in Anotolia is easily recalled.  In Winter Sleep, horses, a dead dog and a hare get attention. And interestingly, this is purely the Ceylans’ contribution, not Chekhov’s.  Aydin, the retired-actor-cum-hotel-owner, never owned a horse. Since a hotel guest points out to him that the hotel’s website shows horses, Aydin is persuaded to purchase a wild horse, which is subdued and kept in the hotel’s makeshift stable. It does not require the brains of a rocket scientist to see the parallels between the horse and Nihal as what happens to the horse is related to the husband-wife relationship. So do the allegories of the dead dog’s carcass and the waiting carrion birds on the tree branches connect up with the film’s plot.  And the final quixotic proof of ability to hunt game by killing a hare and showing the trophy to his wife Nihal provides considerable visual treats for the viewer to mull over the ambiguous ending.

Profile of Aydin in reverse before he spots the dead dog

Ceylan’s Actors

Winter Sleep is a tale of a retired actor Aydin and his wife. It was imperative that Aydin’s character be played by an able performer. Ceylan achieves this by casting Haluk Bilginer, a Turkish actor with considerable experience on the British stage and TV, who is a delight to watch as he interprets Aydin on screen. So are Melisa Sozen as Nihal and Nejat Isler (who was equally impressive in Semih Kaplanoglu’s Egg) as Ismail, the elder brother of the Imam.  While these three performers are top-notch, the other minor characters such as the Imam Hamdi, his nephew Ilyas, and Aydin’s sister Necla will not fail to impress a perceptive viewer. Winter Sleep is not a film held together by one actor, it is held together by an ensemble of quality actors well chosen by the director.

Cinematography in Winter Sleep

No discussion on this remarkable film would be complete without praising the cinematographer Gokhan Tiryaki, who has been a regular collaborator of Ceylan and has been responsible for capturing effective external and indoor scenes with dramatic effect, more so in the latter. His use of light and shadows in interior shots will remain in a viewer’s memory, film after film.  In Winter Sleep, his reverse angle shots of Aydin and slow zoom in on Aydin’s head at key junctures in the film are remarkable.  The rock thrown at Aydin’s Landrover can be seen in flight before the ultimate impact and one doubts if special effects were employed.

Reverse shot of  Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) in light and shadows

Lastly, the final shots of both Winter Sleep and Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan (cinematographer Mikhail Krichman) are almost identical wordless shots of rocky snowy landscapes. Both films are outstanding and comparable. Winter Sleep won the top award at Cannes but failed to reach even the final nomination stage at the Oscars.  Leviathan won the Golden Globe, an Oscar nomination, and the Cameraimage Golden Frog award, the most prestigious award for cinematographers.

Music in Winter Sleep

The choice of music in a film by the director is often missed out by viewers. In Winter Sleep, music is sparsely used, but when it is utilized it embellishes the cinematic work. The piece of music Ceylan uses is Schubert’s Sonata no. 20 in A major the very same piece of music used by Robert Bresson in his French classic Au Hazard Balthazar. By a coincidence, the French classic is one of Ceylan’s favourite films.

Concluding Remarks

Though this critic is a great votary of Nuri Bilge Ceylan and considers him to be one of the finest directors alive and making films, the best work of Ceylan remains Three Monkeys, the first movie the director collaborated with his wife on the script. Both Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Semih Kaplanoglu, two remarkable Turkish directors, have injected a new life into Turkish cinema to take it new highs in world cinema.

P.S.  Winter Sleep is one of the top 10 films of the author in 2014. Three Monkeys (2008) and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) have being reviewed on this blog earlier. Three Monkeys is the lone Ceylan work on his top 100 films list. A report of a brief interaction between the author and Nuri Bilge Ceylan in December 2014 at Trivandrum’s International Film Festival of Kerala published on the Dear Cinema website can be accessed at http://dearcinema.com/article/men-intellectually-not-strong-women-nuri-bilge-ceylan/1346 Zvyagintsev's Leviathan (2014) and Nichol's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), mentioned in the above analysis, have been also earlier reviewed in detail on this blog. Mr Ceylan is also one of the author's 15 favourite active filmmakers