Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Uzak/Distant, follows a couple of losers lost in their own respective worlds. Muzaffer Ozdemir plays an established photographer seemingly bored in his work, effectively reducing a high flying creative job to a standard nine to fiver. In one scene, he visits an office to follow through a job. When the editor turns his back to examine the negatives against a window, he thumbs a magazine as if killing time in a launderette. The scene draws out and nothing else happens. Ozdemir drifts around his spacious apartment (a wandering curiosity of rooms that reveal themselves right through the film) alternating between a constant flow of work, at his own casual pace and the casual gratification of sexual pleasure, via faceless prostitutes and his video recorder. Indeed, Ozdemir exists at his own pace playing his own rules.
One tired evening his distant cousin arrives (Mehmit Emin Toprak) from his distant family, needing a place to stay while looking for work in the city. Ozdemir accepts his staying but coldly lays down the house rules.
At first, he has very little to say to his cousin, as the days pass the relationship spreads even thinner, until his only daily enquiry is whether or not he’s found any work. As a result Toprak is forced to find conversation in local cafes, wearing the same clothes he arrived in.
It soon emerges that we are meant to find both men unlikable characters. Ozdemir shuffles about concerned only with himself, taking advantage of others on the sly, while Toprak, having no real energy to find work, spends his time stalking woman or stinking up the flat when Ozdemir is out. Yet watching Uzak, you find yourself genuinely engaged by their movements and concerned for their outcomes.
Both men soon long for the absence of the other but their forced togetherness is equally deserving. Toprak secretly smokes in the lounge, gorging his host’s food, while Ozdemir secretly sprays Top rak’s offensive shoes before throwing them into a cupboard. In a comic sequence, Ozdemir feigns going to bed so he can watch a porno video, while his cousin equally feigns tiredness so he can make a private phone call. He soon finishes the call and returns to the sitting room standing over Ozdemir, who fumbles the controls to change the channel but not before we’ve caught a glimpse of something non terrestrial.
Uzak is beautifully photographed, capturing an Istanbul adrift in heavy snow, a quieting landscape that allows a greater volume between its protagonists and at the same time, emphasizing their own cold remoteness.
Unsurprisingly, Ceylan’s film opts out of an easy reconciliation, favouring a more meditative conclusion that drifts through the mind long after the closing credits.
Philip Rashleigh on 23rd August 2004
Film Description
A beautifully-photographed film of melancholia in Istanbul that is regarded as a contemporary masterpiece. The film is concerned with the distance between people, especially two cousins - one man a drifting photographer, the other fresh from the village with a dream of finding work in the city. Winner of the Grand Prix Cannes 2003.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Uzak/Distant, follows a couple of losers lost in their own respective worlds. Muzaffer Ozdemir plays an established photographer seemingly bored i... more >
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Uzak/Distant, follows a couple of losers lost in their own respective worlds. Muzaffer Ozdemir plays an established photographer seemingly bored in his work, effectively reducing a high flying creative job to a standard nine to fiver. In one scene, he visits an office to follow through a job. When the editor turns his back to examine the negatives against a window, he thumbs a magazine as if killing time in a launderette. The scene draws out and nothing else happens. Ozdemir drifts around his spacious apartment (a wandering curiosity of rooms that reveal themselves right through the film) alternating between a constant flow of work, at his own casual pace and the casual gratification of sexual pleasure, via faceless prostitutes and his video recorder. Indeed, Ozdemir exists at his own pace playing his own rules.
One tired evening his distant cousin arrives (Mehmit Emin Toprak) from his distant family, needing a place to stay while looking for work in the city. Ozdemir accepts his staying but coldly lays down the house rules.
At first, he has very little to say to his cousin, as the days pass the relationship spreads even thinner, until his only daily enquiry is whether or not he’s found any work. As a result Toprak is forced to find conversation in local cafes, wearing the same clothes he arrived in.
It soon emerges that we are meant to find both men unlikable characters. Ozdemir shuffles about concerned only with himself, taking advantage of others on the sly, while Toprak, having no real energy to find work, spends his time stalking woman or stinking up the flat when Ozdemir is out. Yet watching Uzak, you find yourself genuinely engaged by their movements and concerned for their outcomes.
Both men soon long for the absence of the other but their forced togetherness is equally deserving. Toprak secretly smokes in the lounge, gorging his host’s food, while Ozdemir secretly sprays Top rak’s offensive shoes before throwing them into a cupboard. In a comic sequence, Ozdemir feigns going to bed so he can watch a porno video, while his cousin equally feigns tiredness so he can make a private phone call. He soon finishes the call and returns to the sitting room standing over Ozdemir, who fumbles the controls to change the channel but not before we’ve caught a glimpse of something non terrestrial.
Uzak is beautifully photographed, capturing an Istanbul adrift in heavy snow, a quieting landscape that allows a greater volume between its protagonists and at the same time, emphasizing their own cold remoteness.
Unsurprisingly, Ceylan’s film opts out of an easy reconciliation, favouring a more meditative conclusion that drifts through the mind long after the closing credits.
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