DISTANT aka Uzak (2002) - Nuri Bilge Ceylan's third feature and Cannes Grand Prix winner had a recent restoration and is now out on DVD & Blu Ray from Big World Pictures. Release date was December, 2022.
DISTANT is a fairly simple story of an unemployed young man from a small Turkish village, Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak), who goes to Istanbul to get a job - and a life's purpose. While he searches for work, he stays at the apartment of an acquaintance from his hometown, Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir). Mahmut is older, and has found some success as a photographer. His home is well appointed and he's become accustomed to big city life.
Yusuf latches onto a dream of traveling the world as a sailor, but reality hits him quickly and he becomes increasingly sullen. Mahmut reveals himself to be melancholy and sour in his own ways. At one point, he even declares: “Photography is dead.” Rather than draw them together, the pair's loneliness only creates more tension and despair.
As with his later films, Ceylan's use of landscape becomes key to his themes. The cold Turkish winter highlights his protagonists' struggles. Frozen hills and snow capped ships in the harbor (one of them semi-capsized like a leviathan) bring their intended chill to the proceedings. Andrei Tarkovsky is referenced a few times including a clip from STALKER. Like the Russian master, Ceylan uses geography as a character all its own. There is a side trip to picturesque Anatolia, where a few years later Ceylan set perhaps his most acclaimed film thus far - the magnificent ONE NIGHT IN ANATOLIA.
DISTANT isn't as ambitious as his later films, but, it's a worthy early entry in Ceylan's filmography. The subtle, but keenly delivered performances are an asset (the pair shared Best Actor at Cannes; Sadly, Toprak had passed away in a car accident). Together, Özdemir and Toprak give you a deeply wrought feeling for this rather brief moment when their ships cross paths.
DISTANT is a fairly simple story of an unemployed young man from a small Turkish village, Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak), who goes to Istanbul to get a job - and a life's purpose. While he searches for work, he stays at the apartment of an acquaintance from his hometown, Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir). Mahmut is older, and has found some success as a photographer. His home is well appointed and he's become accustomed to big city life.
Yusuf latches onto a dream of traveling the world as a sailor, but reality hits him quickly and he becomes increasingly sullen. Mahmut reveals himself to be melancholy and sour in his own ways. At one point, he even declares: “Photography is dead.” Rather than draw them together, the pair's loneliness only creates more tension and despair.
As with his later films, Ceylan's use of landscape becomes key to his themes. The cold Turkish winter highlights his protagonists' struggles. Frozen hills and snow capped ships in the harbor (one of them semi-capsized like a leviathan) bring their intended chill to the proceedings. Andrei Tarkovsky is referenced a few times including a clip from STALKER. Like the Russian master, Ceylan uses geography as a character all its own. There is a side trip to picturesque Anatolia, where a few years later Ceylan set perhaps his most acclaimed film thus far - the magnificent ONE NIGHT IN ANATOLIA.
DISTANT isn't as ambitious as his later films, but, it's a worthy early entry in Ceylan's filmography. The subtle, but keenly delivered performances are an asset (the pair shared Best Actor at Cannes; Sadly, Toprak had passed away in a car accident). Together, Özdemir and Toprak give you a deeply wrought feeling for this rather brief moment when their ships cross paths.
