more late night viewing

UZAK - Distant

A 2002 Turkish production, Uzak is set in a thoroughly modernized Istanbul of wintry emotions and lowered expectations. The downsized factory worker Yusuf begins the film with his trek across a snowy landscape from a small river town and ends it by staring at his future from the balcony of his cousin Mahmut's apartment in Istanbul, a city of equally frozen prospects. The idealism of youth is soon overcome by the realities of even the most simplistic existence. During a small gathering of photographer friends, Mahmut is accused by another photographer of abandoning the ideals of his youth, when Mahmut claimed he would make films like those of Tarkovsky. Mahmut says that "...photography  is finished... photography is dead."

Shortly after this gathering, Mahmut and Yusuf are in Mahmut's apartment watching a video of Tarkovsky's Stalker, during one of the long takes of the early train ride into The Zone.

 The unsophisticated Yusuf bails on the film and goes to bed. Mahmut continues to watch, but as soon as his cousin has closed his door, removes the Tarkovsky tape and begins to watch some unknown porn.

The primary question posed to the viewer is: why has this self made small town success abandoned his art and become a commercial hack who photographs static ceramic tile for a tile manufacturer? Is photography really dead? Or is it dead only for the director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, a  photographer himself?  Or only to  Mahmut, who has lost the idealism of his youth? Most likely the latter, for Mahmut's challenger Arif  asks which he Mahmut prefers, "Photogtraphy or women?" There seems to be no real answer from Mahmut directly - his use of porn and prostitutes is clear enough an answer -  but Arif answers for him, "I prefer photography."

Meanwhile, his unemployed cousin Yusuf wanders around a snow filled Istanbul in search of a dream job that doesn't exist, refusing to tell the truth about his prospects to either his host or himself. Eventually he disappears without any announcement or traces, other than some cheap cigarettes Mahmut finds between the wall and the couch.

Earlier Mahmut had railed against Yusuf for smoking such "shit" that was commonly consumed by the sailors Yusuf wanted to join. Yusuf's idealism crushed also, we're left with the image of his cousin, the sophisticate and equally as dissolute photographer, watching the harbor with boats busily steaming past as he smokes the last of Yusuf's ordinary cigarettes.

The distant of the title rather explicitly refers to the separation the characters feel from each other, from their environment, from themselves. Not a particularly cheery or unique view, but one well rendered nonetheless.