Once Upon a Time in
Anatolia
Directed By: Nuri
Bilge Ceylan
Written By: Ebru
Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Ercan Kesal
Starring:
Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Firat Taris, and Ahmet Mumtaz
Taylan
Director of Photography: Gokham Tiryaki, Editors: Bora
Goksingol and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Art Director: Dilek Yapkuoz Ayaztuna
Rated: Unrated,
but only appropriate for audiences with open minds and strong bladders.
As the title might suggest,
landscape may be the most crucial character in the dark and elliptical Once
Upon a Time in Anatolia. As the men we follow trek the terrain through the
night, the clear plains and trees seem to carry on into the distance without
end. These men are lost in a world where not much exists beyond the hills and
the slowly fading sun. Like the opening shots of Abbas Kiaraostami’s The
Wind Will Carry Us, they are dwarfed among the plains in their small cars,
which become their only source of light as their search continues into the utter
darkness.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is the latest work from Turkish director
Nuri Bile Ceylan, best known for his 2006 film Climates. Mr. Ceylan’s
latest feature is both an epic as well as an intimate and minimalist
portrayal of daily life. Shot gorgeously along the Anatolian plains, this
occasionally frustrating work attempts to explore a lot of different themes and
ideas, as well as characters, but through a small prism of access in which we
our limited by a type of realism in which narrative turns are small and unique.
But as it slowly treks toward some sort of conclusion, this police procedural
is an assuredly bold attempt to explore a number of notions about the existence
of human life, even if Mr. Ceylan is not sure what exactly he is exploring.
