Distant

The pastoral symphony which the director started with The Small Town and continued in Clouds of May, becomes more amplex when the hero arrives in the big city. The energetic youth whom we recognise from the first two films, with his two university failures, his continuing unemployment and dreams about Istanbul, resumes his quest...  He now finds himself a not entirely welcome guest in the house of an intellectual relative who has managed to establish himself in Istanbul, having exchanged his old problems for new ones... The young man plans to get a job on a ship and sail away to other countries, to distant places… Conveying characters’ interactions within the cramped domestic environment, Istanbul streets and sailors’ pubs, with touching authenticity, Distant is a film in which the viewer can easily identify with both characters. Dotted with elaborate images such as watching porn on video and switching to Tarkovsky to avoid being caught, or scenes depicting the small life details such as the hunt for a little mouse, Distant is a film that conveys life itself. Nuri Bilge Ceylan filters the events through his own memories and our experiences and, in doing so, proves that he would probably be able to communicate any story and the humanity within it, regardless of its setting, be it country, town, metropolis or outer space. It is not often that one comes across a film that seems so distant, yet is so infused with warmth, apparently tranquil yet exciting at the same time.The film Distant contributes much to Turkish cinema with its great script, dialogue, acting and cinematography. Sadly this was the last film for leading actor Mehmet Emin Toprak who was killed in a car accident last year.