Ceylan’s meta-filmic sophomore feature feels like a Kiarostami-esque attempt at self-reflexivity, while occasionally drifting into dreamy, subliminal scenes, as a filmmaker broaches the idea of getting his parents to act in his next project.
While not as resonating as his recent output such are his towering standards, Ceylan’s new film is still an exquisitely mounted, conversation-heavy exploration of the desire to escape from existential gloom as a village schoolteacher mulls over the prospect of a city transfer.
A strong, poetic feature debut from a master-in-the-making, centering on two young children’s perspective of living in their home village, as the adults around them converse about the cruelty and misery of life.
Continue reading →Turkish master Ceylan continues his extraordinarily consistent form in this dialogue-heavy three-hour drama with echoes of ‘Winter Sleep’ and ‘Anatolia’.
Continue reading →Ceylan continues to explore the beauty and peril of human communication with aplomb in this long but ultimately fruitful cinematic sermon.
Continue reading →Ceylan and his wife star as a couple facing the complexities of spousal communication and the fragility of marriage in this slow-burning, Antonioni-esque drama that is marked by few words.
Continue reading →A hit-and-run accident sets in motion what may be Ceylan’s bleakest film, a departure into a slightly more experimental style marked by grimy cinematography and even more measured pacing, as it explores a family on the precipice of disintegration.
Continue reading →This deliberately paced anti-investigative procedural, directed by Ceylan in astonishing form, is my favourite film of the 2010s decade, as a methodical ‘character’ study about personas, geographical psychology, stasis and incommunicability plays out with profound philosophical effect.
Eternality Tan 