Thanks to the precious Europa Cinema Network and the not less precious progeny of the missus, last weekend afforded a welcome respite from – as previously oft-stated, nonetheless most-beloved – Tinseltown product, in the shape, or rather image, of Ahlat Ağacı.
Ahlat Ağacı is the 9th feature film directed by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who very MacMahonianly also produced and directed all his deservedly much awarded films, including one Palme D´Or, one Cannes Best Director Award and one Cannes Jury Award. His style is unique and indescribable but I'll try; Otar Iosseliani without the pause meets the Coen Bros without the postmodern self-consciousness resulting in one of the closest things to la verité 24 fois par seconde to be seen anywhere. OK, I guess I failed.
Ahlat Ağacı tells the story of Sinan (Aydın Doğu Demirkol, appropriately apathetic) who returns to his home town of Çanakkale after completing his studies for primary school teacher and before enrolling in compulsive military service, the professional prospect of the former apparently crept in by his father's example (Murat Cemcir, impressively pathetic) finally not very enticing as dad has devolved into a gambling loafer so Sinan pursues literary aspirations to whom, for his best efforts and not unlike The MacMahonian, no one pays attention to. After finishing a sentence with a proposition it remains to me to report that the noneventful plot, running a little over 3 hours which fittingly feel exactly like that, follows Sinan in long conversations with her mother, father (would you guess it, more attrite), what appears to be an old flame, an established writer whom Sinan seeks to impress by going on about things like “the physicality of the written page”, the local mayor who explains to Sinan subsidizing the publication of his writings would not straightforwardly fall into the local regulatory framework governing the financing of municipal cultural activities, and finally an imam who is owes money to many of his flock and with whom Sinan has a long discussion about the existence, or necessity, of God. In-laws notwithstanding I don't understand much Turkish and these dialogues came to me in the form of Portuguese subtitles translated from English subtitles. I wish I understood more Turkish. The dialogue's beauty matches that of the images, and the humour supersedes it. Neither the former nor the latter mean to teach you nothing, and they succeed.
Unlike John Ford's, the beauty of Ceylan's cinema doesn't decorate or comment on the life it pictures so much as accompanies its motion. The inconclusiveness is life's, not cinema's. Whatever meaning, up to each.