Uzak

Before taking a look over any of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's movie I wanted to know who he was, and turns out he is one of the finest photographers out there. The movie I am going to talk about is a simple but unique and very much relevant way of introducing his audience to his lifestyle or the life-experiences he's been through. I heard that his work is influenced by Abbas Kiarostami, who played a singular role to define films representing middle-eastern identity and it's consequences. After Taste of Cherry (1997), Abbas Kiarostami made his very own language of cinema which I found worthy of naming it 'new wave cinema' but perhaps for my little knowledge of cinema, I still see his works artistically weaker than other European film poets. I said this much about Abbas Kiarostami because Uzak (2002), from my point of view was born from him, Nuri being a very artistically blessed follower of him, carried the movie beyond his idol's cine language and successfully made his first film poetry with a true Tarkovskiyan ending. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (2011) is in my possession now and despite all the fantastic reviews I have no plan to watch it soon because I've been drowned in Uzak. This film has everything to be categorized as the signature work of the turkish director and at the same time an era-defining masterpiece.

The story is almost insignificant and so is the camera-work, they didn't represent anything out of the box. The event portrayed here can happen to anybody who's from a sub-urban area and now doing pretty well or average in the capital city. Sudden closure of a factory created a reason for Yusuf to come to Mahmut, the protagonist in Istanbul. Mahmut probably thought or really believed that Yusuf could stay with him for a little while and when he finds a job he will be gone. On a second thought, I really don't think that Mahmut, the character has the emotional attachment or concern for thinking about it at all. The obvious distance between them gradually being uncovered, and in a very complex circumstances Mahmut lost his temper and showed his inner individualistic selfishness. Yusuf silently is gone from the story, and Mahmut with all his post-modern complexions remains the man he was from the first. Nothing changes, a 40 year old independent photographer and his world of untold bizarre delusion are all that's left at the ending scene, which mesmerized me and hurt me with it's unbearable depression and it's unfathomable depth that hits right into your senses. 

If the story is this short, what makes the strength of a film to make it's viewer stoned? For Uzak, most of the credit goes to the two lead actors, their performances can be described as real, which i think is rare to see in movies these days. The whole movie stands upon a pool of short conversations, looks on faces, events that are very normal but considered insignificant. An immensely challenging work of executing all these little details and turn them into the fibers of a post-modern tale of life, is done with a delicate photographer's hand. That's why the slow pace, lack of human connection, even the exhibits of disgusting habits cannot ruin it a bit. Happy to see the beautiful Anatolian steppes off course through the eye of a great photographer, and the snow-falling shown in such a nostalgic style, remarkable.

Greatest European film-poet of his time Andrey Tarkovskiy stated that Art is born out of an ill-designed world. These out of the world incredibly beautiful and deep movies wouldn't be there if the world was perfect, the crisis and dysfunction in the system provoke an artist to show the world how exactly it feels. The extent to which an artist is capable of performing the act, that has no objective measure or standards. Nuri Bilge Ceylan is undoubtedly one of a kind jewel in contemplative cinema who has already been showing simultaneously the maturity of a european film-poet and the artistic indifference inherited from  the middle-eastern new wave.

 

Melancholia

At last I found the exact peace of mind that you need to sensually appreciate a movie like Melancholia (2011). After watching it somehow i felt something unique about this movie, I don't exactly explain what that 'something' is or describe it in any way, but what can I say, it was the exact thing i expected from this epic work of Lars Von Trier ,which i hear represents a liaison between Hollywood big budget film and European art house indie films.

First thing I wanna say is pretty obvious to any average movie lovers, the starting part and the ending part have contributed most to the whole movie being an extraordinarily beautiful one. Yes, there are very good pieces of acting done by Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsburg & the most brilliant one, Kieffer Sutherland (seriously his character should have been given at least a chance to grow), but little did they matter. I really enjoyed Kirsten Dunst in so very different character like this and she did pretty well reminding me how i felt about her when I watched Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind (2004) and thought she should do some real movie leaving the Spider-man lady image. The bathing scene must be the scene where positive viewers enjoyed the most and negative viewers (who hate the movie before even seeing it) hated the most. The scene tells us a lot about the story than any other scene in the movie, it exhibits the nature of the perpetual depression in Justine and how anyone, doesn't matter how close they are, cannot help her or understand her pain. Another beautiful scene apart from the starting and ending is Justine lying naked in the jungle and when that supernatural light falls on her I experienced the best nude scene in my movie viewing history. Many people say that some weird depressed face and emotional outbursts don't make her capable of getting the best actress award but from my point of view, she totally understood what her character represents and she portrayed it well enough to be considered as beautiful and that's why she deserves the award.

Now I have to admit that I haven't watched any of Trier's work with so much concentration and calm mind before Melancholia. I am a big fan of European art films specially Scandinavian directors, if not for them movie would not so firmly grown as a strong and effective art form as it is now. I cannot possibly talk about how Roy Andersson's films changed the whole idea of movies to me, it was like a life-changing experience. With Lars Von Trier working in Hollywood, I expected something truly universal and masterwork from him. And he didn't disappoint me even a little bit. After Dancer In The Dark (2000) and Antichrist (2009), expectations grew higher and when he managed to grab a big budget project, they were just skyrocketing. If you make a list of most talked about movies of 2011, I am sure Melancholia will top many's.The number of outstandingly memorable frames Melancholia graced us with, are enough to satisfy the hunger of true art-seeking souls. Besides, the story, plot even the acting easily qualify for calling the movie epic.

The movie, without any doubt worthy of it's name and fame both. I really hope a movie like this getting the Academy Best Picture award and setting an example that should have been set a long time ago.

Dexter season 06 : Another Journey of The Dark Passenger

If I've been asked to name one TV series without any progression of degradation in quality throughout all the seasons, I would say "Dexter", and to be fair enough this series has already taken a major step for being the best TV series ever made, at least for the genre. The latest season of Dexter showed how this season can be better than all the former ones, which is very unlikely to happen these days. I can give a dozen examples of TV series getting worse from season to season, sometimes a complete disaster being a pure wastage of time. 'Heroes' is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Being a fan of Dexter from the start, I was amazed to watch all the fabrics of breathtaking storyline in every season. Without any major disappointment, I've been able to watch this nearly superhero series ever since. I started sixth season with considerable amount of confusion and a hidden fear that, it's time for another great series to be ruined. But this supreme tale of life and death has turned into a saga of a mastermind last year, and we have nothing to do except bow before the landmark it made.

Michael C Hall hits us again with his silent and a very weird way of making an effective impression of a nearly human serial killer. His dedication to portray the character Dexter and the consistency he maintained from the first is really admirable. In every season his character had to go through significant changes which affected the whole plot later. He managed to not only adapt with the changes, but also made an advantage of it and facilitated the evolution of a serial killer to an angel of death. My confusion about this season was the possibility of a failure or major flaw in the storyline because of the sudden death of Rita & unexplored real fatherhood of Dexter. Despite all my bad expectations, turns out Dexter is not a lousy dad at all besides being the carrier of the dark passenger. Story of this season was like a challenge to Michael C Hall because it's a reformation of his well known character 'Dexter'. Somewhere between the season Dexter got all confused and disturbed, finding no hope or no answer to all of his questions, question of belief, question of righteousness and overall question of his inner bestiality. After all this, introduction of a very short lasting but effective character Brother Sam, made a remarkable and somewhat questionable impact on Dexter. And then the obvious meeting between the big bad of this season Dooms Day Killer (DDK) and the angel of death Dexter, couldn't be more exciting. The actor has that much maturity and potential to portray all of this flawlessly till the end. Outstanding performance from the actor, expected and delivered undoubtedly. There's a rumor going on that he is renegotiating his contract and claiming a million per episode of the upcoming season which is causing a possible termination of the series. It would be absolutely stupid to discontinue this extraordinary series on a salary issue, anybody can tell that Michael C Hall is worth much greater than that.

Another very important aspect of this series is how successfully it can make an way through the tragic ending of the only regular romantic relationship of Dexter & maintaining the subtle tone of morality without introducing any new female lead. Now I think this has been the only dysfunction in the overall story and dragging the once-not-so-important character Debra Morgan to that lead is not the best decision at all. This process of reformation has been plotted from the former season and with the promotion, responsibility and psychotherapy sessions it's been prominent that Deb the sis is not that messed up little sister anymore, her character is going to be significant than ever in the next season. But I have to admit that the idea of the incestuous relationship between those two is very disturbing and creepy to some extent. Jennifer Carpenter has overcome her excessive overacting in the former seasons & this whole emotional meltdown stage suited her well. She has found her place in this truly great storyline.

A good series requires a good lead actor, but doesn't necessarily depend on him totally. The balance also had been made by some very good piece of acting from the fellow actors. Travis Marshall himself alone was not sufficient enough to be the big bad, Prof. James Gellar represents the gap between average disturbed human mind and an evil mastermind psychopath.When Dex found Gellar dead in the church, within a moment, a work of giving a surprise to the viewers & introducing another dark passenger, should have been done with artistic accuracy. That's another flaw which got fade during the last three episodes. I still hope to get a better explanation in the future seasons but again one has to admit that a major shocker like this only fits in a series like Dexter. Edward James Olmos was a perfect choice for the dark and twisted character of Gellar, with his oldish look and mysterious face he managed to make a believable appearance as a spiritually misguided genius. Some characters have lost their charm and importance, most notably Lt. Laguerta and Quinn, reminding us that their time has come to get off the show.

Now I'm going to write about some scenes or presentation of events that forced me to re-evaluate the series from the first season and helped me getting the greater view. Starting with the same old 'Dexter'ous beginning of every episode, the observer & adviser father figure Harry Morgan who's actually not there, significant number of killings with least exposure to violence, all these are the sweet memoirs to me. This season added another one to the list, the door is ajar & the camera moving to find a Dad Dexter bathing his little boy Harrison, the bubbles are flying so are my imaginations how far this series can go to find the true path of righteousness concealing his true identity even to his own son. 'Dexter' gave me a lot of good times and I'm looking forward to get more of those melancholic scenes to be inscribed in my brain forever.