A metaphysical road movie about life, death and the limits of knowledge, “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” has arrived just in time to cure the adult filmgoer blues. It was directed by the Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose earlier movies include “Distant”and “Three Monkeys” and who in recent years has emerged as one of the consistently most exciting directors on the international scene. His latest, which shared the grand prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, takes the unassuming form of a police investigation that, as miles and words mount, evolves into a plangent, visually stunning meditation on what it is to be human.
Add Pages To A Passport Fast – Save Your Self The Pressure no comments
Posted at 5:58 pm in Uncategorized
If you find yourself in a position where you have less pages left in your passport, you should consider adding a few more. This can be as a result of you being a frequent traveler who needs urgent or new passport books. If you are a frequent traveler and you are a business person, you have to look for the easiest way to add pages to pasport fast.
Minimum Pages
When the passport has only a few pages left, you have to act quickly, especially if you are planning on traveling soon. You can do this by applying for it right away since the process takes about four to six weeks for it to be complete. Acting upon this issue fast will allow you to have a successful procedure that will enable you to travel.
Additional Pages
Remember that in order for you to request for pages to be added to your passport, the travel document should be valid. Keeping the travel document valid at all times will ensure that you can visit anywhere at anytime. Having proved that the passport is valid, you will be required to fill out an application letter or form. The completed form is supposed to be sent along with the present travel papers to a given address.
Personal Information
First, completing the form requires that you submit your personal details. This calls for you to make sure that you give details of your sex, phone numbers, address, birthplace and birth certificate. While listing the phone contact details, you may also need to provide an emergency phone contact. Also, indicate the date the form was completed.
Costs
The fee for acquiring this document when using the normal routine is not expensive and extra charges should not be imposed on the applicant. Although, for individuals who want the document urgently, you might be forced to choose expedited travel documents and that will mean you spend more since it has extra charges. Expedited travel documents are usually processed faster to enable you to will travel at the stipulated time.
Travel Agencies
If you do not have any other alternative, you can seek the help of a tour agency in the area. You will be in a position to fill out the forms with the help of an expert. This expert will direct you on the information required so that the passport is released on time. When filling the form in, the PIN number and security number should be included.
Urgent Travel
Should you be in need of quick processing, you can opt to go for an online agency for the process to be hastened. Online agencies take care of a lot of needs for a frequent traveler. You can do all this in the office or in the house, which makes it the most convenient method because you are not spending on transportation costs to and from the agency office. Look into getting a same day passport.
Review | Slow-Moving But Visually Potent no comments
Posted at 8:19 pm in Turkish Cinema
REVIEW:
Nuri Bilge Ceylan Builds a Slow-Moving But Visually Potent Once Upon a Time in Anatolia by Michelle Orange
MOVIELINE SCORE: 8½
Tectonic pacing builds to a series of imperceptible and yet earth-moving moments in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, a habeas corpus procedural stretched across two and a half discursive hours. The setup — a policeman, a lawyer, and a doctor head into the Turkish countryside — has the ring of an old joke, something Ceylan never forgets as the groups’s long night and next day wears on. A mix of mordant wit and metaphysical waxing carries the men toward their respective fates, each having more to do with the buried body they are seeking than it first appears.
Technically, the search for the body of a local garage-owner named Yasar is led by a decent but fraying police commissioner named Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan). Sawing Naci’s last nerve is the tormented murder suspect, Kenan (Firat Tanis), whose claim of forgetting exactly where his victim is buried keeps the caravan moving from spot to remote spot all through the night.
Technically, the search for the body of a local garage-owner named Yasar is led by a decent but fraying police commissioner named Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan). Sawing Naci’s last nerve is the tormented murder suspect, Kenan (Firat Tanis), whose claim of forgetting exactly where his victim is buried keeps the caravan moving from spot to remote spot all through the night.
Prosecutor Nusret (Taner Birsel) is tagging along in case the body actually turns up, as is Doctor Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner). Despite Turkish genes and enigmatically pitted cheeks, everyone eventually agrees that the former bears a resemblance to Clark Gable; the latter enjoys the consensus that he is still a young man with his whole life ahead of him, though he wears the weight of a recent divorce in his handsome face. The only shared opinion about the comically rotund Arab Ali (Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan) is that he should probably talk less and drive more. When he does speak, however, it becomes clear that Arab is the only one of the men with an untroubled perspective on life, a viable blend of rural pragmatism and a lyrical sense of life’s story.
The first half of the film comprises scenes of casual en route quibbling — the dialogue is permeated by the narcissism of small, mostly tribal differences — about who makes better yogurt, who is peeing too often, and who knows the fastest way where. At each hopeful juncture the men pile out of their cars and fall into new configurations. In one of the first stops the doctor and the driver compare moods — where one sees the seemingly pointless night as a Beckett play, the other finds a fairy tale. Later, when the men stop for the night at the compound of a local Mukhtar (Ercan Kesal), the prosecutor tells the doctor the story of a young woman who predicted her own death -— a cherished allegory the doctor dismisses on medical grounds. But if he’s right, the question lingers: What meaning is left in the rational world?
The answer, or one possible answer, or maybe just a refusal of the question, arrives in the form of a woman. The appearance of the Mukhtar’s beauteous teenage daughter (Cansu Demirci) breaks the film’s all-male filibuster, and to welcome her Ceylan rolls out a brocaded cinematic carpet. In contrast to the previous hour’s lighting scheme of cold-beamed, dueling headlights, the girl’s singular, incandescent approach feels celestial. Balancing an oil lamp on a platter of brimming teacups, she lowers the glasses before the innocent and condemned alike. Despite not getting a line (or even a credit in the press notes), she’s meant to embody everything that’s worth living for in a low-down, dirty world.
Such a pity, the men remark, that it will all be wasted on a backwater town. It’s a literal spotlight of a sequence, and I suspect if Ceylan weren’t so expert at stretching his weakness for the obvious across such a vast and blissfully well-composed canvas, it would make a splotchier impact. For this skill he is often compared to Bresson and Antonioni, and if Ceylan shares his characters’ hopes for Turkey’s acceptance into the European Union, I imagine his inclusion in the tradition Pauline Kael called “Come-as-the-sick-soul-of-Europe parties” would be flattering on geographical terms alone. He’s too funny and multi-faceted to be trapped by Euro-arthouse cliché, though, too interested in the absurdist flipside of existential dread.
When the sun comes up and the body is finally, dreadfully unearthed, Anatolia (from the Greek for “sunrise”) is only half over. The more details the men collect and record, the less they seem to know — or want to know — and the further their minds drift to women, who are mentioned often and without warning, as if to confirm the heart of every moody silence.
Silence and sound are deployed as artfully as Ceylan’s sweeping master shots are. In lieu of a soundtrack he contrasts near and far noises, interior voices and exterior perspectives, a layering effect that either culminates or terminates in the final scene, where the music of children playing outside a hospital mingles with the visceral notes of a body being broken down like a roast chicken. It becomes impossible to hear one without the other, hard as you might try.
Residential Prescription Drug Addiction Rehab Center no comments
Posted at 9:00 pm in Uncategorized
People often have a hard time deciding if they’ll be able to handle a residential prescription drug addiction rehab clinic, much less when it comes to knowing if it’s even right for them. At the same time, several methods are available for people to choose from, which can make the overall process even more difficult in the scheme of things. Despite this, however, many individuals have learned that they can truly benefit from these types of facilities, especially when they compare them to other options.
A Hard Fight
People commonly have a hard time fighting their addiction, regardless of what it might be. However, those who suffer from an addiction regarding medically prescribed products often have a more difficult time in most cases. Sometimes, this is due to the easy access they have, for the most part, and because it is technically legal.
Easier Access
People often have a difficult time fighting their addiction with prescription medication since it can legally be obtained, unlike with many other drug problems. As a result, many find it difficult when it comes to recognizing their problem. In the end, a lot can depend on a person’s drive and desire to get better.
A Good Fit
Despite numerous choices available regarding programs and treatment centers, it’s wise to choose something that will be right for you. This can take a while to research but you’re more likely to have better results. Should you choose a place that has an environment that you’re not comfortable with, you may find yourself struggling.
Choose A Center
Although there are usually different programs you can choose, many tend to like treatment centers due to their methods. Some will offer group and semi-individual care while others may provide individual care alone. If you prefer one-on-one care as opposed to group-type sessions or meetings, this may be something to consider beforehand.
Different Approaches
Programs work differently regarding an overall approach. As an example, certain facilities like treatment centers will provide psychological assistance. Other types may offer other focuses or inspiration to help people quit their addiction such as religion.
The Right Tools
Many people feel that psychological focuses such as cognitive behavioral therapy can provide them with the medical drug detox tools to succeed in their recovery. This is usually due to the way these methods focus on the individual, helping them to see their life in a new perspective. At the same time, people are able to recognize their behavior and mindset that may allow them to cope with life in a more productive manner.
Safety And Appearance With External Solar Blinds no comments
Posted at 7:35 pm in Uncategorized
There are various ways to protect the interiors of a house or commercial building from the heat and glare of the sun. One of the most effective is an external blinds. These offered the added advantage of enhancing visual appeal. There are also adjustable ones meaning they can be open and shut to the degree one wishes. They can be adjusted mechanically or manually.
Exterior Shading
In addition, exterior sun control louvers offer added privacy, especially for rooms and offices that are on the lower floor. The other advantage they offer is that they do not hinder the free circulation of air. Neither do they hinder free views of the exterior from the inside. The materials and production methods used to produce them are quite advanced so they are quite lost lasting. Once they are put up, it is a long time before they need to be replaced.
Environmental Friendly
As a matter of fact, most manufacturers are going for methods of production that are chosen with environmental conservation in mind. Most of them are also made to take advantage of solar energy as one of the green energy alternatives. In so doing, less artificial energy is required and demand on sources like fuel is also reduced.
Options
The shading can be horizontal, vertical or tilted and are placed over shade window openings. The fixed shading work best where the high angle of the sun needs to be reduced during the hot season. They can also be effective in letting through the low angle of the sun in cold months, which makes it possible for solar power to be used.
Versatile
All kinds of buildings can have the shading placed over them. In hospital rooms for example, they give patients privacy and fresh air while letting them see the outside clearly and also in offices, stores and showrooms. They offer the same in domestic buildings, both block and houses that stand alone. One can make the most of the fact that they can be custom made and have them done so that they are a major focal point because they create a striking contrast or they have been made to blend in seamlessly.
Materials
There are several options available when it comes to external shading. One is the aluminum type. These can be put up on their own or alongside fixtures like roof lights. These differ from the more prevalent blades, which have the shape of a Z. These work to reduce both direct and diffused light. Rather, the aluminum systems are reinforced to be able to offset a room getting too hot while also allowing a lot of diffused light to get through. There is a choice of those made with blades that are perforated.
Paneling
Panels are another alternative. This will not be installed the same way as standard shading that are mounted above or below the rafters. Usually, contoured end plates are used and the final results are outstanding. The other option can work with is with shading that take the form of support rafters. Their use is dependent on how they are put in. How heavy the structure is and weight are other determining factors.
The Reason For A U S Passport Card no comments
Posted at 6:34 pm in Uncategorized
The purpose of obtaining a passport card is to be able to travel between land and sea borders to destinations such as Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. It is a legally issued document by United States agencies, which is not as expensive in comparison to passports. Every citizen of America has the right to obtain such a document through legal procedure.
Border Travel
Individuals must remember that one will not be able to travel by international air with this document. This particular legal item will fulfill all border travel requirements and is provided in a less bulky format than that of regular passports. The purpose of these cards is to provide proof of identity and U. S. Citizenship.
Application
For first time applicants, individuals are required to apply in person by visiting legal authorities when it is the first time that one is applying for the document. It should be issued for those who are under sixteen years of age or if the previous legal item was issued when the individual was sixteen. This document should be applied for in instances where it has been lost, stolen or damaged. There is a different forms for a online passport lost.
Requirements
If an individual has applied for the particular document over fifteen years ago, they are required to apply for a new item and in instances of being unable to legally change your name. Special requirements are applied to situations of minors between sixteen to seventeen years of age. Adults who are applying for new cards must visit the relevant authority.
DS-11
All United States citizens possess the legal right to apply for the U. S. Passport Card where application processes may be completed online using the DS-11 form. During this procedure, application forms must not be signed before instructed to do so by an Acceptance Agent. Should one not be able to provide proof of social security will result in an increase in processing time or the denial of approving the application.
Legal Forms
When visiting an Acceptance Facility or Passport Agency for application procedures, one must provide evidence for proof of U. S citizenship submitted with form DS-11. When all documents are submitted as evidence for citizenship, it will be returned to the applicant via mail delivery together with the newly issued document. The primary source of evidence that is required for application processes is a certified birth certificate or previous passport documentation.
Place Specific
If travel arrangements have been made on short notice for land or sea border destinations, one is eligible to apply for the document. Upon issuing of these legally required cards, individuals may proceed with the above mentioned travel arrangements and do not have to possess a visa. This document may be used as proof for citizenship when flying within the country or when purchasing items such as alcohol and tobacco for proof of age.
Will World End Before or After Festival Does? no comments
Posted at 2:41 am in Turkish Cinema
By STEPHEN HOLDENPublished: October 4, 2011
The opportunity to see two intimidating landmarks — “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” and “The Turin Horse” — is reason enough for any filmgoer with more than a passing interest in the evolution of world cinema to be grateful for the platform of the New York Film Festival. Because the chances that either movie will soon be coming to a theater near you, as they say, are next to nil, the best time to see them may be at Alice Tully Hall in the coming week…
“Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” begins with the haunting image of a three-car caravan, viewed from afar, as it winds its way through the Turkish countryside in the dead of night. The weary travelers include policemen, a prosecutor, a doctor, grave diggers and a confessed murder suspect taking the search party to his victim’s burial site, which he has difficulty finding.
The main characters — a whimsical prosecutor (Taner Birsel), a misanthropic police chief (Yilmaz Erdogan) and the doctor (Muhammet Uzuner) — each occupy a different moral universe, with the doctor, a Chekhovian figure, the story’s moral fulcrum. Flecked with magical realist touches and a sense of the supernatural, the film takes no shortcuts as its characters discharge their laborious and depressing duties. The autopsy of the corpse concludes the film’s sorrowful, unblinking dissection of the human condition. This third film by Mr. Ceylan to be showcased at the festival, following “Distant” in 2002 and “Climates,” in 2006, “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” is, in a word, great.
Marijuana Treatment Program – Save Your Future no comments
Posted at 5:49 pm in Uncategorized
A detox program is aimed at bringing drug intoxication and withdrawal under control. Detoxification is mainly concerned with the physical effects of using drugs. Cannabis, or weed rehabilitation is concerned with the psychological and behavioral aspects of long-term cannabis use and dependency. Rehabilitation is a long-term goal where the intention is to stop using the substance altogether and completely overhaul an individual’s social life and improve their career prospects.
The Source
Marijuana comes from the leaves and female flowers of the Cannabis sativa plant. The plant is dried and either smoked, baked into brownies, drunk in the form of tea or absorbed into oils. Thousands of years ago, it was used in religious practices. Today, it is more often used in a social ritual for recreational purposes. It is widely regarded by experts as the least damaging and the most commonly abused illicit drug on earth. It did not become criminalized until early in the Twentieth Century.
The Intake
When Cannabis is incorporated into social rituals, it is usually rolled up in cigarette papers into what are known as ‘joints’. The ritual begins with someone lighting the joint, taking a ‘hit’ and passing it on to the next smoker, and so on. Smoking cannabis induces a sensation of euphoria and calm. All of the senses are intensified. Colors are brighter, the sense of touch is heightened and music sounds better when high.
The Results
Time becomes distorted so users feel like a few minutes can last an hour. Users also report ‘cotton mouth’ and getting the ‘munchies’. In other words, smoking grass makes you thirsty and hungry.
Social Aspect
Watching television or listening to music are common social practices that involve cannabis. It is not unusual to send someone out on a mission to bring back drinks and snacks to counter the effects of cottonmouth and the munchies. This may involve going to the supermarket or raiding a fast food place. Some people become paranoid in the company of non-users when they are under the influence of cannabis. These are unsuitable candidates for the munchies run. Although the symptoms wear off after a few hours of use, the drug can remain in the system and detectable in urine for several weeks.
Potency
Today’s strains of cannabis are far more potent than the weed that the Baby Boomer generation smoked during their formative years. Known as ‘skunk’, the high-strength strains have been selectively bred for the past thirty to forty years. Arrests and seizures of the high-strength drug have skyrocketed while the same figures for lower strength varieties have fallen.
Dependence
Contrary to popular folklore, it is possible to become dependent on cannabis. A state of dependency is defined to be reached when it takes increasingly more amounts of the drug to achieve the same state of well-being or when its use interferes with the users job or relationships. More people enroll in heroin medical detoxification programs for cannabis than for any other drug, including crack, cocaine and heroin.
How Louvers Are Used In Architectural Sun Control System no comments
Posted at 6:57 pm in Uncategorized
Building and construction owners receive environmental advantages by buying louvers. You can find these appliances in different materials and several multiple blade sizes. This process will ensure that you save money used in climatic control and also electricity bills. When going for architectural sun control, there is need to check maintenance needs, placements and appearance.
Louvers
The main function of exterior sun control exterior sun louvers is to supply sunlight by controlling both the solar heat gain and loss. Sunlight control will depend on the season to reduce the buildings desire for electricity or energy. Thus, it will lead to saving money that would have been used to pay electricity bills.
Winter Season
During the winter or cold season, these louvers open so that heat and sunlight is allowed to enter the building. This results to reducing the cost of heating. In the summer season, the louvers close to ensure that excess heat is blocked from the building. The moment window glazing is incorporated,you can be assured to gain even more cost savings.
Placement
The other thing about louvers is placement. The designer who is installing them should ensure they are placed in a position that will ensure maximum benefits. The louvers should not be installed on the northern side of the building because this means few power benefits. In contrast, southern, eastern or western side of the building will offer substantial energy benefits.
Auto Louvers
It is also possible to automate the louvers. Doing this will allow the device to change angles as a result of the sun’s location. It means that the energy requirement for the building will be influenced by the shading. You should also note that the louvers have maintenance needs.
Upkeep
The materials used on this system will dictate its maintenance. An example of this is that when a louver is made using wood, it will need frequent cleaning and maintenance. When you acquire louvers made of synthetic materials, it will not require as much maintenance. Some of the materials that require practically no maintenance include aluminum and copper.
Building Exterior
The buildings exterior and interior look will also affect the louver system. Instead of buying expensive electrical controls, you can use louvers in minimizing glare and regulating indoor light. This will improve the occupant’s wellbeing and productivity with lighting from the louvers. In addition, the buildings exterior will look elegant.
Variety
Note that different materials will provide different looks. The wooden ones produce an organic, warm environment while the metallic design create an industrial, modern appearance. Note that the material for your louvers will be dictated by your desire.
Review | Once Upon a Time In Anatolia by Manohla Dargis no comments
Posted at 1:21 pm in Turkish Cinema
MOVIE REVIEW
Cinema Guild
A scene from “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.”
One Search for a Body, Another for Meaning
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: January 3, 2012
The story is direct, if the journey less so. A man has been murdered, and a small battalion — a doctor, a prosecutor, a few policemen, several soldiers, diggers with shovels and a transcriber with a laptop — has invaded the countryside with the suspect to dig up the body. The trouble is that the accused, Kenan (Firat Tanis), claims to have been drunk when he committed the murder and can’t remember where he buried the body. And so off the men go in two cars and a Jeep, driving up and down the sensuous, rolling hills of Anatolia, the enormous peninsula that constitutes most of Turkey and which the ancient Greeks called the land of the rising sun.
The sun has nearly set when the men first appear en masse, pulling into a turn in the dirt road where a solitary young tree pierces the parched amber landscape like a shot arrow. Making the most of his wide-screen frame — a format made for landscapes like these and filmmakers as sensitive as this one — Mr. Ceylan initially keeps his distance from the characters by showing them in extreme long shot, a vantage that accentuates how small they are in relation to the wide world enveloping them. This is the first in a series of stops that the men will make as, again and again, they look for the body in a search that reveals far more about the living than about the dead.
Mr. Ceylan soon cuts in for a closer look as he turns his brilliant eye for landscape to the gaunt and rounded, pitted and smoothed faces of his travelers. Much like the stopovers during the search when the men clamber out of their vehicles, these faces — including those of the doctor, Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner), and the prosecutor, Nusret (Taner Birsel) — are effectively narrative layovers, breaks in the larger journey. There’s a murder at the story’s center, but as one after another face fills the frame, a tear violently trembling in one man’s eye while the memory of a dead wife hovers in another man’s look, it becomes evident that the greater mystery here is of existence itself.
The title of “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” suggests the work of Sergio Leone, including most obviously Leone’s 1968 masterpiece, “Once Upon a Time in the West.” I don’t want to make strong claims about the influence of that or any other Leone film on “Anatolia,” though the twinned landscapes of this movie’s natural vistas and the ugly beauty of its fantastic faces evoke Leone. (More than a few of Mr. Ceylan’s actors could outgargoyle Leone performers like Jack Elam.) Yet, like most westerns, “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” is, among other things, an examination of violence and masculinity, one in which women remain critical if largely off-screen figures, silent if never truly mute.
Mr. Ceylan doesn’t trumpet his ideas, but lets them quietly surface, often through the stories that the men tell one another and that at times take the form of parables. In one, a driver, Arab Ali (Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan), tells the doctor how he likes to drive to the countryside for target practice, just to let off some steam. Enveloped in darkness, the wind rising like sighs, Arab Ali at first registers as a somewhat buffoonish, borderline-dangerous character whose Hobbesian worldview (it’s shoot or be shot) is a reminder that this is, after all, a search for a murdered man. Yet, like the doctor, the prosecutor and the police chief, Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan), Arab Ali proves more complex than he seems because his words are those of a man puzzling through the meaning of life.
Words can fail the men, whose stories of lost wives and other ghosts drench the movie in an acute sense of loss, one that is offset by the effulgence of the natural world, a gift that none seem to see. The dead haunt “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,” but so does beauty. At one point, after several futile attempts to find the body, the men drive to a village. There they are greeted by its leader, or mukhtar (Ercan Kesal), who, amid a hospitable meal, tells the travelers that the town needs a new morgue. Most of the young people have left, he says, and when an old villager dies, they beg to see the dead one last time, holding onto a past that fills them with longing. And then the mukhtar’s beautiful daughter joins the men, her face bathed in a light that until then has eluded them.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan; written by Ercan Kesal, Ebru Ceylan and Nuri Bilge Ceylan; director of photography, Gokhan Tiryaki; edited by Bora Goksingol and Nuri Bilge Ceylan; art direction by Dilek Yapkuoz Ayaztuna; produced by Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan; released by the Cinema Guild. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. In Turkish, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 37 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Muhammet Uzuner (Doctor Cemal), Yilmaz Erdogan (Commissar Naci), Taner Birsel (Prosecutor Nusret), Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan (Driver Arab Ali), Firat Tanis (Suspect Kenan) and Ercan Kesal (Mukhtar)
.
.
‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ is the first masterpiece of 2012 no comments
Posted at 1:03 am in Turkish Cinema
‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ is the first masterpiece of 2012
‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ — Photo courtesy of Cinema Guild
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, which recently opened at New York City’s Film Forum, is an effective police procedural that examines the lengthy process of finding the bad guys, believing in the good guys and turning our expectations completely on their head. The Turkish-language film, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is an expert character study of a group of men with differing opinions of justice and judgment.
In today’s age of Criminal Minds, Law & Order, CSI and their various offshoots, it’s hard to believe that an original police procedural is still possible. Too often the sub-genre has been regimented and standardized into cliche plot occurrences: the dead body on the pavement, the skeptical police investigator, the line of crime scene tape, maybe a pesky journalist asking a few heated questions. We’ve seen it all time and time again, and, for the most part, the term “police procedural” is a death knell, a stamp of rigid formality.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is anything but typical. As it follows the travails of a police commissioner, prosecutor, doctor and murder suspect through one night and early morning, all aspects of true police work are on display. There are lengthy conversations about important and not-so-important topics. The characters laugh and cry, always cognizant of the fact that they have been tasked with a difficult job that routinely deals in death and despair. These guys don’t discover a corpse with resignation. They are affected by their findings; they sometimes cannot control their emotions. This is not cinematic bloodshed; it’s real and it hurts.
Because the movie focuses on a crime from a much more realistic perspective, there are also times when the proceedings grow dull. However, it oddly all fits together. These characters have been toiling away for years at their job; occasionally, they are victims of boredom. At 157 minutes, Ceylan’s film includes the full gamut of lows and highs of a police case.
Firat Tanisu in ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ — Photo courtesy of Cinema Guild
The central plot of the story — and the particulars of the crime — are immaterial. Not much is learned throughout the entire movie. We know that the police officials are transporting a criminal around the rolling hills of Anatolia in search of a buried body. The suspect was drunk when the murder took place and can’t remember exactly where he did his nasty deed. This leads the police on a wild goose chase not to stop any future crime from occurring, but simply to put an exclamation point on a murder that has already taken place. This gives the entire story an “aftermath” feel, as if the prosecutor and company are already conceding that they are too late.
With a light story that meanders to an end, the characters need to be engaging to hold our interest. Thankfully, the characters are interesting, and the assembled actors are top quality. Muhammet Uzuner as Doctor Cemal, Yilmaz Erdogan as Commisar Naci, Taner Birsel as Prosecutor Nusret and Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan as the driver Arab Ali are all distinct, yet seem cut from the same thread. In their conversations, they reveal a great deal about their past sins and their present predicaments. The prosecutor and doctor, in particular, become our two focal points. The man of medicine is a studious, contemplative person, while the man of law can’t help having feelings of anguish over the loss of a loved one. Together, the men weave their way through therapeutic back-and-froths that advance their characters and seem to heal some wounds.
The most memorable aspect of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is Ceylan’s direction and Gokhan Tiryaki’s exquisite photography. The shadows and lighting over the hilly landscapes all come to life, creating pastoral images that seem painted on a canvas. The countryside of Turkey has never looked more desperate or forlorn — two qualities that seem fitting for the men who populate its folds.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
-
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
-
2012
-
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
-
Written by Ercan Kesal, Ebru Ceylan and Nuri Bilge Ceylan
-
Starring Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan, Firat Tanis and Ercan Kesal
-
Running time: 157 minutes
-
Rating:
