Reha Erdem is keen on telling universal stories of grandiose proportions. This director-writer-editor caught my attention with Kosmos and now again is concerned with outcasts. A couple on the run to be precise, which makes for a very useful narrative engine.
Things are not in order in the city, for example “those city lights – they shine so bright”(to quote The Shadow Ring) that one character observes:“they replace night with day”but also that “light is close to darkness”. And as we know from many tales chaos engender bad situations.
So the couple, siblings Ali and Zuhal, flee to nature. Or maybe better: Mother Nature as it’s reminded time and again that they have parents (and in fact seem to leave orphanage not long ago). They encounter turtles, frogs, snails, spiders, fish – all harmless as tender close-ups prove. But there are also snakes – and as we know…
There is also talk about wolves but there is none in sight. Maybe they add to the alarmingly oppulent soundscape unfolding at night. The importance of sound reminded me about Oscuro animal where the characters were also lost amidst nature and had to find clues by listening to their surroundings. Here sounds set the scene even in the city – ships sirens echo around (maybe they are calls of nature). Similar tones occur in the music (by…?) where too sweet piano-jingle motif is balanced by brass-like notes of organ.
One more instance of neat use of sound is near the end when we clearly hear thunders but there aren’t any visible traces of storm. This anomaly is now just another sign that things went out of control. First Zuhal was playful about all that, starting things over, choosing new names but when Ali was visiting urban(ized) areas she was more and more alienated in the woods, strenghtening her bond with nature and with death. And seeing strange people, either a woman looking for daddy (she was so old that there was a huge possibility her father is long gone) or a guy shouting around in search for mommy. Both siblings, but Zuhal especially, start to play (with) dead, toy with that state, enact it. But on the other hand she is confident that “everywhere is alive” (I can’t help but think about Cindytalk’s A Life Is Everywhere). She also speaks to animals seeing in them reincarnations of sought after persons.
Don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t seen it yet but isn’t it the same goat in the last scene as in the first? And as for Zuhal condition, maybe a spell was cast while braiding her hair (as we know from many tales hair is a residue of vital power).
This is a kind of movie the more I think about it – the more I like it. I might be put off by some too poetic arrangements in the second half but the cinematography was consistently firm (Florent Herry with whom Erdem has worked on a number of movies) and both leading actors were tremendous (Berke Karaer should be singled out as it seems his debut on big screen).
lazy eyes lively ears 