ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA

Turkey, 2011, 150 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Ceylan is probably Turkey’s best-known director today. He has featured with most of his films at the Cannes Festival and has won the director’s prize there for Three Monkeys. He also won the Grand Jury Prize for Distant and in 2011 for the present film. However, he is known in the art film world rather than at the multiplexes and his films and their style are an acquired taste.

His films often have quite a long running time – and are quite unhurried, often with a lingering gaze at characters in close-up or at landscapes. The audience has plenty of time to contemplate, reflect and be immersed in the world that Ceylan invites them into.

This film runs for two and a half hours. The action takes place over one night and a morning – so plenty of time to offer detail. And the film does. It is detail about the search for the body of a murdered man – the police, soldiers, a doctor and the local prosecutor accompany the alleged killer to different sites in the rather barren mountains of Anatolia. There is a prologue with three men drinking and talking, then the credits, then a long shot of three cars, lights on, travelling the mountain road, then arriving at the first site. When we see the accused, we realise that it is a seemingly jovial friend that he has killed.

After some futile visits to possible burial places, the group spend the night in a village. Again, we have a long time to contemplate the mayor, his daughter, and what life, hospitality and cooking, are like in this remote town. There is an interesting discussion about the need for funding for a morgue – many emigrants to Europe have left their families behind and want to return at their deaths, often in a very hot summer. He makes a point.

When the body is recovered, there is quite a lot more detail, not just the forensic detail, but the problems in transferring the body since the group has neglected to bring a body bag. Later, there are sequences in the autopsy room.

There are enigmatic interludes, especially with the prosecutor asking the doctor’s opinion about the death of the wife of a friend (obviously telling his own story) as well as the relationship of the accused with the son of the dead man who is identified by his wife.

Films like this can alienate an impatient audience. They can fascinate those who surrender themselves.

1. Audience interest in the film: plot, characters, complications? Life in Turkey?

2. The director and his reputation, international? Many awards? His art style?

3. Anatolia/Turkey: audience knowledge, audience ignorance? The remoteness of eastern Turkey? Villages, poverty? Cities? Changes in the 21st century? The look of Anatolia, by night, by day? Hills, fields, barren landscapes? The small fountains? The village? Houses and interiors? The lack of electricity? The contrast with the city, exteriors, overview, offices, the hospital, the morgue? The finale – an ordinary town, the children playing at school? The musical score?

4. The basic plot: simplicity, murder, search and failure, night, morning, finding the body, the forensic details, the morgue and autopsy?

5. The complexities: the introduction, the camera looking through the window, the three men talking, laughing? The gap of the credits? The night view, the cars in the distance, coming to search, Kenan and his saying he was drunk, not remembering where the body was buried? The chief of police and his harshness, Kenan and the touches of tenderness, his weeping, the issue of the boy, whose father? The victim, hogtied? The range of people, the condemnation of Kenan, the boy throwing the stone at him?

6. The plot concerning the chief: twenty years, getting tired, relationship with his wife, the boy at home, his mental disability, yet his high IQ? His questions? The chief needing to get away from home? Getting the pills for his son? His fatalism – that this was meant to be?

7. The story of the prosecutor, well-to-do, his work and expertise, his telling the story to the doctor of the woman who died, her pregnancy, the moment of her death? The issue of the husband having an affair and his wife seeing him? The pregnancy, giving birth, cuddling the child, death? The issue of pills? The doctor’s explanation – and the father-in-law having such pills? The ruthlessness and the punishment of the husband – and the prosecutor telling his own story?

8. The story of the doctor, from the city, his work in the country, at the service of people, alone at home, shower, going to work? His explaining the death of the woman to the prosecutor? The morgue, the details of the autopsy – and his dictating that there was nothing wrong with the lungs even though the doctor had found dirt and the prospect that the victim was buried alive?

9. The range of police, Arab and his story, Izzet in charge of the prisoners, the group of soldiers, the secretary and his laptop? The people in the village, the search, the type? The issue of the body bag and its absence, getting the body into the boot?

10. Life in the village, the head, the mayor, his being re-elected, his story? Votes and his standing again? Hospitality, the lamb, the honey? His wanting a morgue, his explanation of migrants to Europe wanting to come back and see their dead parents, the heat of summer? His daughter, her work? The men looking at her, the comments that she would fade away in this village?

11. The victim’s wife, son, throwing the stone, the truth about his paternity? The woman identifying her husband, taking the clothes? The end and the boy kicking the football back to the children?

12. The details of the autopsy – and the ambiguity about the dirt found?

13. A film of meticulous detail, taking its time, offering audiences time to reflect? The effect on the audience experiencing this detail?