Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Written by Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Ercan Kesal
Written by Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Ercan Kesal
with Muhammet Uzuner, Taner Birsel, Firat Tanis
2011
Keeping in mind that the title is just a translation, I suppressed my natural geeky impulse to assume this would be a latter-day tribute to Sergio Leone. I couldn’t help coming away thinking, however, that this hard-edged exercise in bathos bore far more comparison to those films than, say, Robert Rodriguez’s conscious effort to hitch a ride on their epic connotation. Leone used ‘The West’ and ‘America’ as complete, mythical entities peopled with their own archetypes and structured around their own meta-narratives. This is mirrored here in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s treatment of Anatolia, the region's socio-economic concerns, politics, and folklore running through it from start to finish. The landscape itself, chilly and dead, with the claustrophobic isolation that comes from the horizon only ever getting as far as the next hill, is a character unto itself, visually and thematically the place from which everything emerges. “Once upon a time” is no reference to any specific set of films, but one to storytelling in general: the scenario is saturated in tales being told, gossip being spread, and lies being spun.
After an inconclusive opening scene, in which we see rather than hear an anecdote, we are taken into a single long night and early morning to watch the unfolding of a police search, the final stage of a murder investigation. The two suspects, brothers, one a savage-looking villain, the other with the mind of a child, have apparently come to a mitigating deal with the police to reveal where they hid the body, a task complicated by an apparent inability to remember exactly where this was. Appearances of all sorts can be deceptive, as is proved throughout, and we are led to doubt the official circumstances of the crime. The film is full of stories, but the one driving events is conspicuously incomplete; a furtive mystery surrounds what actually happened on the night of the murder, our suspicions piqued but never confirmed via second-hand versions and minor incident. It may seem reductive to say a piece such as this, all dialogue and no action, is about procrastination, but that is what we see here: procrastination and deceit. The character of the doctor, who we at first take to be the film’s moral compass, initially seems to shine a light of common sense and honesty through the murk. You’ll have to make up your own mind at the end as to how successful he is.
After an inconclusive opening scene, in which we see rather than hear an anecdote, we are taken into a single long night and early morning to watch the unfolding of a police search, the final stage of a murder investigation. The two suspects, brothers, one a savage-looking villain, the other with the mind of a child, have apparently come to a mitigating deal with the police to reveal where they hid the body, a task complicated by an apparent inability to remember exactly where this was. Appearances of all sorts can be deceptive, as is proved throughout, and we are led to doubt the official circumstances of the crime. The film is full of stories, but the one driving events is conspicuously incomplete; a furtive mystery surrounds what actually happened on the night of the murder, our suspicions piqued but never confirmed via second-hand versions and minor incident. It may seem reductive to say a piece such as this, all dialogue and no action, is about procrastination, but that is what we see here: procrastination and deceit. The character of the doctor, who we at first take to be the film’s moral compass, initially seems to shine a light of common sense and honesty through the murk. You’ll have to make up your own mind at the end as to how successful he is.
The visual sense of the film is astonishing, if perhaps a little overworked for some tastes. The otherworldly appearance of the first two thirds, a nighttime landscape lit with headlights and lamp-glow, is as easy to gaze at as the screenplay is challenging, and works to create a semi-surreal dream that contrasts sharply with the insomniac daylight which events meander into. At the same time, its appearance sits oddly with the ultra-realist elements, and will either increase the movie's emotional impact or make for a uniquely superficial experience, depending on how willing you are to work for your entertainment. At 157 minutes, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia would be long if something that could be even charitably called a plot occurred, and it’s enigmatic to what many would call a fault; be prepared to only love it for its looks unless you’re ready to engage with some quite weighty themes on a purely subtextual level. Having said this, there’s something daring in the film’s introversion and the lack of concession to audience attention span, and if you’re ready to accept it for what it is you should find it a compelling and moving experience. An existential morality tale sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it’s hard not to apply it to the forlorn brutality we see here, where right and wrong seem to exist, and are cared for, but ultimately get washed over by the oppressive monotone of procedure, and the random cruelty of chance. The culmination of the night’s events is a small gesture of solidarity against that cruelty, but this is subsequently coloured by the reminder in the final image that solidarity has a lot in common with implication, and the concurrent suggestion of corruption both professional and spiritual. It ends visually before it does aurally, our final impression being the sounds of children playing mixed with the drip and clunk of an autopsy.
Tom
Tom
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