Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (film)
Once Upon a Time in
Anatolia (Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan)/2011
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is an incredibly soothing movie.
It is a gentle, lush journey through Anatolia, in which the everyday events of
life are made beautiful. The beauty does not arise due to the addition of
anything new, but through the illumination of what we often overlook.
It is interesting that the movie’s director Nuri Ceylan chose to focus the story on detectives chasing down a body in the Turkish countryside when the feeling of the movie is so tranquil. My view is that he wanted to point out the beauty that hides behind the curtains of our day-to-day existence, regardless of what those experiences are. This argument is supported by the focus on idle chitchat through out the story, when the actual events taking place are far from the normal human experience.
Fundamental to this movie is sound. The director speaks to the viewer with the subtle noises that flow through this movie. Sound is also something that we tend to block out in our day-to-day rush through existence. By revealing the sounds that we unconsciously block out, the movie reveals to us a reality that we seldom experience: a reality that when revealed is all the more beautiful due to its general absence from our normal existence.
The sociological aspects of this movie are interesting. For instance, the group of detectives, the prosecutor and a doctor need rest and food and spend the night in a village. The murder suspects eat and sleep among them, and the village uses the hospitality as leverage to get the improvements made to the village that they have been waiting for. The illuminated realism of the movie makes these interactions strangely beautiful even though common place and mundane. That being said, the fascinating quality of these interactions may have been heightened due to my lack of previous exposure to Turkish culture.
A philosophical point is made late in the movie, starting with the doctor arguing in favour of an autopsy when there is no benefit in people knowing the truth but then eventually siding partly in the other direction. This relates to the broader search by the detectives to prove something when doing so might not provide any benefit to society as a whole. Without being fully certain of this supposition, this philosophical interjection might be conceived as linked to the broader attempt by the movie to reveal to us elements of our lives that are over looked: truth is important, but there a many layers to our existence and therefore many things that can be of defining importance to our lives.
It is interesting that the movie’s director Nuri Ceylan chose to focus the story on detectives chasing down a body in the Turkish countryside when the feeling of the movie is so tranquil. My view is that he wanted to point out the beauty that hides behind the curtains of our day-to-day existence, regardless of what those experiences are. This argument is supported by the focus on idle chitchat through out the story, when the actual events taking place are far from the normal human experience.
Fundamental to this movie is sound. The director speaks to the viewer with the subtle noises that flow through this movie. Sound is also something that we tend to block out in our day-to-day rush through existence. By revealing the sounds that we unconsciously block out, the movie reveals to us a reality that we seldom experience: a reality that when revealed is all the more beautiful due to its general absence from our normal existence.
The sociological aspects of this movie are interesting. For instance, the group of detectives, the prosecutor and a doctor need rest and food and spend the night in a village. The murder suspects eat and sleep among them, and the village uses the hospitality as leverage to get the improvements made to the village that they have been waiting for. The illuminated realism of the movie makes these interactions strangely beautiful even though common place and mundane. That being said, the fascinating quality of these interactions may have been heightened due to my lack of previous exposure to Turkish culture.
A philosophical point is made late in the movie, starting with the doctor arguing in favour of an autopsy when there is no benefit in people knowing the truth but then eventually siding partly in the other direction. This relates to the broader search by the detectives to prove something when doing so might not provide any benefit to society as a whole. Without being fully certain of this supposition, this philosophical interjection might be conceived as linked to the broader attempt by the movie to reveal to us elements of our lives that are over looked: truth is important, but there a many layers to our existence and therefore many things that can be of defining importance to our lives.
