Distant
by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Emin Ceylan, Emin Toprak, Fatma Ceylan, Muzaffer ?zdemir, Turgut ToprakDirector: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Producer: Feridun Koc
Cinematographer: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Producer: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Writer: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Editor: Ayhan Erg?rsel
Editor: Yusuf Aldirmaz
Audio: Turkish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Yorker Video
Movie Reviews of Distant
Movie Review: Excellent
Summary: 4 Stars
Nuri Bilge Ceylan's 2002 film Distant (Uzak)- his third feature film (his first was 1997's black and white The Small Town- Kasaba), is a significant step up from his good but flawed 1999 film Clouds Of May (Mayis Sikintisi). The earlier film had potential, but reeked of a small budget and improvised quality in the worst ways- plot holes and wooden acting from amateurs. That Clouds Of May succeeded on any level was a testament to Ceylan's talent as a budding filmmaker. However, Distant is Ceylan's arrival on the international scene as a great artist, one who has many of the same qualities as other great filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman (although his screenplay is not as dialogue-heavy it is just as brooding, and he lacks Bergman's penchant for close-ups- his shots are usually long shots for exteriors and medium shots for interiors) and Yasujiro Ozu (whose penetrating scenes of contemplation Ceylan reconfigures). The bulk of the film takes place in snowy hibernal Istanbul (the fact that it snows in Turkey will likely surprise some), which lends the film a definite Bergmanian feel, as well as reminding one of some of the bleak snowy urban images from Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue. The natural images invoke the best of Werner Herzog- as they tend to go on a beat or two longer than standard film theory would dictate- which is what makes them even more memorable, while the urban landscapes range from the nearly Precisionist compositions of Michelangelo Antonioni to the cultural hagiography of Woody Allen- one shot of a bench overlooking water is a direct quotation (read steal) from Manhattan, save the lack of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. In another scene, Ceylan similarly quotes a famous shot of a ship in the harbor from Ozu's Tokyo Story. Yet, like all great artists, Ceylan makes his appropriations his own art, by slightly altering them and keeping them apropos to his own film's needs.... Distant is a film whose title suffuses the characterization within the film and the feeling some viewers will have toward them, but it does not describe the film itself, for scenes stay with one long after the film ends. Perhaps the most memorable scene and image of the film comes when Mahmut stalks his ex-wife at the Istanbul airport, and watches her with her new husband as they head to board the plane that will remove her from his life forever. As he watches her, from a distance, we see her catch just a glance of him watching her. Will she leave her husband and return to Mahmut? Not in this film. He pulls back behind a column, and Nazan merely turns her head back to her future. Mahmut is her past, and she knows how to best move on- just keep moving. Mahmut will never get it. Most rarely get such moments of insight into themselves of life. That some viewers will get the film, and that Ceylan gets his own powers of creation, shows that ignorance can teach, as long as one moves about it. Distant does, albeit it at just the right length.
Summary of Distant
Mahmut a 40 year old independent photographer is a village boy made good at least professionally in the big city - istanbul in this case.. Studio: New Yorker Films Video Release Date: 03/22/2005 Run time: 105 minutesThe highly acclaimed, award-winning Turkish film Distant is a deeply compassionate and frequently amusing study of quiet desperation, prompting many critics to favorably compare writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's subtly hypnotic drama to the films of Ozu and Tarkovsky. Watch closely and you'll recognize someone you know, or even yourself, and the quietest moments are the most enjoyably revealing. Muzaffer ?zdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak shared Best Actor honors at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival for their perfectly nuanced performances as (respectively) divorced, 40-something photographer Mahmut and his distant relative Yusef, who arrives in Istanbul looking for work, and quickly wears out his welcome. Tensions mount, revealing solitude as the natural (if not preferred) state of these lonely, melancholy men. (In the context of this film, it's tragically ironic that Toprak was killed in an auto accident, at age 28, six months before his honors at Cannes.) With understated humor, Ceylan observes Mahmut and Yusef's chronic isolation, but he never passes judgment. Distant could've been made anywhere and it would yield the same visually seductive study of detachment. Tune into its wavelength and you'll find it unforgettable. --Jeff Shannon
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