Distant
An international breakthrough for Turkish writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, DISTANT (UZAK) is a somber, hauntingly beautiful portrait of two lost souls struggling to connect in snowy Istanbul. Unemployed factory worker Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak) leaves his village to seek opportunity in the big city, where he stays with his intellectual photographer cousin Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir). Both men are dissatisfied, for reasons only hinted at through brooding silences and lyrical long shots. Ceylan’s semi-autobiographical art-house drama won the Grand Prix in Cannes, alongside a posthumous Best Actor award (shared with his co-star) for 28-year-old Toprak, who died in a car accident soon after filming ended.
Muzaffer Özdemir, Mehmet Emin Toprak, Zuhal Gencer
- Notes From Andrew HaighI wish I could have made this film. It speaks so acutely to loneliness and the nature of melancholy. How we let it overwhelm us, find comfort almost within it. Over the years I have taken a lot of inspiration from this film, with its careful pacing, the masterful blocking of characters in relationship to the camera, the expressive sound design and the minimal but razor-sharp editing. It is a profoundly serious film yet has a lightness, a humor always rooted in the contractionary nature of the character. And no one shoots snow like Nuri Bilge Ceylan.