Distant

A once artistically ambitious photographer, now sullen and cynical, agrees to lodge a cousin from his native village who has come to Istanbul looking for work. Remember those slow pans across barren landscapes I mentioned above… this film has them and they speak of the photographer’s exhaustion, of the country cousin’s exhausted job potential, and more generally of the crush of social inequality. Also note the manner in which the two leads are postioned within the frame and in relation to one another for insight into the film’s themes of disconnect and exile. Moreover, there’s a wonderful scene at film’s end of the photographer enjoying a solitary cigarette. In that very cigarette the film’s entire meaning coalesces.– Dennis Sabourin