Uzak

Screening: 6 February 2006

Turkey/Netherlands 2003
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Leading players ~ Muzaffer Özdemir, Mehmet Emin Toprak, Zuhal Gencer Erkaya.
105 minutes (subtitles)

Synopsis

One day a cousin from the same village he left years ago arrives to stay. Country bumpkin Yusuf (Toprak) has lost his job and plans to find a new one in the city but he soon loses hope and takes to hanging around the streets or, to Mahmut's horror, the flat.

Although their relationship starts well, it doesn't take long for them to get on each other's nerves. Passive Yusuf shows no sign of leaving and doesn't manage to form a relationship with anyone else. He feels incredibly cut off in this urban environment where people are reluctant to speak to strangers. He can't even talk to Mahmut since he seems to disapprove of everything Yusuf says.

Eventually, an appalling thought dawns on Mahmut - he and Yusuf may end up living together for years if he doesn't do something to prevent it. Despite that, he can't bring himself to change in an effort to forge some sort of friendship.

This contemplative movie, quiet with minimal music and very little dialogue is about loneliness and depression. Despite this, it is not itself depressing; rather it is gentle and in parts shyly comic. Although a long film, the plot is quite limited but the sustained, expressive shots slowly build to give us a painfully believable picture of the two men's lives and the title's allusion to the distance between individuals and also between hopes and reality becomes apparent.

The emotional tension generated by the long pauses where no one speaks and nothing much happens is remarkable but the characters' body language tells us that a great deal is being felt. Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan trusts the audience to patiently observe, to be perceptive and to empathise. Not an easy film but quietly moving, unsentimental and fantastically rewarding.

* * * * * *

Film Facts

Mehmet Emin Toprak, who plays Yusuf the gormless country cousin, was the director's own cousin. He died in a road accident two days after shooting ended. He was 28.

The word uzak means distant, not only in the sense of physical distance but also personal isolation, unconnectedness.

'Watching it is like taking a deep draught of cold, clear water.'
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

The Smart car Mahmut drives all through the film was actually the director's own.

Ceylan chose a snowy day to shoot in which Istanbul was breathtakingly beautiful, though forbidding and alienating at the same time.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in 1959.

'Everything shown is both beautifully photographed and utterly realistic. It's the most exquisitely elegant and haunting slow-burn treat of the past five years.'
Nick James, British Film Institute.

This film is the third of a trilogy of autobiographical movies from director Ceylan, the others being The Small Town (1998) and Clouds of May (1999). Mehmet Emin Toprak starred in both.