Distant

A good movie is both enjoyable to watch and a movie that is noticed and stays in the mind. An unpretentious but powerful drama with a unique performance by both main actors, which shows a tactful direction. One of the attractive points of the film is the direction and cinematography. Another good point of the movie is the few dialogues, but appropriate. The film is a story of loneliness and alienation of people in today's life.

one of the best Turkish movie classics.

That scene with Stalker on the tv screen really did this for me.

I don't mind slow and atmospheric and all that but jeez, this was snail-like.

It feels as if films about isolation in a world of billions inevitably skew towards technology as the culprit, implying that there was some sort of idyllic balance before television and social media came along to chain everyone to some form of addictive content. Uzak takes a different, more universal stance on loneliness, largely independent of technology and more focused on clashes in personality, disillusionment, and emotional self-isolation. In their attempts to reach out and firmly graps some direct connection, Özdemir's Mahmut and Toprak's Yusuf only seem able to flail against the current, every day bleeding into the next as they observe others at a distance without the courage to take a decisive step. Bleak but riddled with cynical bits of humor, this is one of those films that may draw critics due to its slow pacing alone, but that tedium matches the thematic goals of the film and ends up reinforcing the development of the characters (or notable lack thereof). (3.5/5)

Clearly inspired by the films of Andrei Tarkovsky (the opening scene looks like something from The Mirror and check out Tarkovsky's Stalker playing on the television), Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant is a visual wonder. Filled with lengthy takes and beautifully framed shots that are blocked to perfection, it is a pensive and ethereal examination of loneliness, obligation and longing. A photographer lives a lonely existence in an apartment in Istanbul, quietly missing his estranged wife, when a distant cousin arrives at his door seeking shelter until he finds employment. Their deteriorating relationship is meticulously dissected over the remainder of the film, leaving the viewer with the sense that we are sometimes doomed to live our lives in ways we never would have imagined.

Narratively this film will bore you. The plot itself is an excuse to slam these two characters together. Yet, it is the most uncomfortable, universal and realistic showcase of people emotionally distancing themselves from each other. Many scenes might seem insignificant or pointless but if you consider them from the perspective of the characters you will see the emotional depth they carry. Instead of trying to connect or understand, both of the men get annoyed at little, petty things in each others behavior, while wallowing in a complete lack of purpose in their lives, highlighted by long still shots. The film is also very quite. There is seemingly no score. And vast stretches of it are just a prolonged silence. Silence is usually considered to be lowkey sign of pretentiousness relative to it's volume in the film because it might seem to people that creator doesn't know what to say and gives this task of interpretation to you. Here, it's the main center point, inability to communicate and then silently brood over this in a seething regret is in my opinion the quintessential human aspect of life.

So beautiful and sad. Spectacular cinematography.

The first Nuri Bilge Ceylan film under 2h that I watched (also the only major one under that length) it was also the most challenging. Long silences, long shots. Still, at the end of it I could feel the cold of the human relationships settling in, so it might not be particularly pleasant, but is definitely another job well done.

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