Distant
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DVD details
Actor: Â Emin Toprak, Zuhal Gencer Muzaffer Ã?zdemirDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Turkish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Yorker
DVD Reviews of Distant
DVD Review: Poignancy in Retrospect
Summary: 4 Stars
You will find fewer more appropriately titled films than "Distant". Opening with a snow-covered landscape with a city in the background, we witness through a stationary camera a small figure walking towards us. The figure is dwarfed by the rest of the mis-en-scene, and this distance seems to directly reflect the title itself. For those who find the opening shot (which takes minutes to unfold) too laborious to sit through, I recommend not even trying with the rest of the film. Containing very little dialogue and no cause-and-effect plot, Distant is a simple portrait of the titular distance between individuals and society, individuals and others, brothers, and, ultimately oneself. As Amazon and others have done a good job at offering a plot synopsis, I'll skip that.
Distant unfolds less like a fictional narrative and more like life captured through a camera. I would call Ceylan's style "neo-realist voyeurism". Ceylan seems to subscribe to the theory of making films as true to life as possible, and even at its most beautiful, the director's influence of the affairs is rarely felt. True to this style, the film moves at life's pace. By "life's pace" I mean there are no quick edits allowing viewers to jump to the most relevant bits. Ceylan often stays focused on seemingly inconsequential scenes for a while. These long stretches of quiet are underscored with a "palpable current of unease" as one reviewer sharply noted. In the case of Mahmut watching TV, the length allows the viewer to pause and realize some inherent irony and absurdity in watching someone watching - or in living vicariously through someone doing the same. Others, such as Yusuf standing silently in a hall with an attractive young woman (one much like those whom he follows around the streets of Istanbul) highlights the theme of the difficulty in making first contact.
"Stark beauty" is a phrase you would hear used to describe this film, and I'm hard pressed to find a better one. Scenes of these characters wandering around Istanbul in winter are surprisingly gorgeous. But this isn't empty prettiness, as the actions of the characters in these scenes, and even the cold itself seems to reflect the central themes superbly. Beyond these chilling winter wonderland visions are others that are more of the surrealistic vein. The overturned tanker in the harbor has been mentioned. This shot is so shocking that one will be initially confused as to exactly what you're looking at. In a film about the normal and every day, this capturing of the completely abnormal and fantastic is a visceral punch. Another favorite scene is Mahmut's dream. This highlights a quality of this minimalistic style; despite that almost nothing happens (save for one small exception) Ceylan is able to extract from this a reaction due to how abstract it is from the normalcy around it.
Distant also contains some rather funny moments that closely resembles elements of our own lives. Not the least of which is the running motif of trying to catch a mouse with sticky paper - which includes a wonderful piece of dialogue regarding one particular failure. Distant is slightly deceptive as it almost makes you believe this will be a comedy. These hopes are dashed as it ends on a note of devastatingly quiet, solitary contemplation. The final scene was thoroughly moving in its subtle, emotive power, and is perhaps the only scene where Ceylon's influence as an artist can be felt. When juxtaposed next to the opening scene, I think the two make a very poignant artistic statement. Distant isn't just a film of mere moments, however. The whole it creates is a nuanced and fully realized slice-of-life portrait of two troubled souls in Istanbul: One man trying to find meaning and direction in his life after a crippling divorce, one man trying to start a life with little talent and less ambition, and the relationship of these two brothers during all this. These relationships and themes are universal enough to allow everyone to connect in some way. As one reviewer said, Ceylan has an uncanny grasp on the nuances of people and relationships, and there are countless examples of terrific, wordless character and relationship development within Distant that might not register initially with the viewer.
Distant is a film that likely won't hit you immediately - as it is as nuanced and subtle a film as you'll ever see. But I do agree with Roger Ebert who asked "How is it that the same movie can seem tedious on first viewing and absorbing on the second?" One answer is that during your first viewing you will patiently wait for something (an event) to happen. Once you realize that nothing will, you are free to go back and let yourself be absorbed in the lives of these characters and the beautiful mosaic Ceylan paints. Long after my initial viewing I find that scenes and moments from Distant replay in my mind less like those from a film, and more vividly like those from memory. And I think that speaks volumes of the enduring power of many "boring art films" such as this.
Description of Distant
The highly acclaimed, award-winning Turkish film Distant is a deeply compassionate and frequently amusing study of quiet desperation, prompting many critics to favorably compare writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's subtly hypnotic drama to the films of Ozu and Tarkovsky. Watch closely and you'll recognize someone you know, or even yourself, and the quietest moments are the most enjoyably revealing. Muzaffer Özdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak shared Best Actor honors at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival for their perfectly nuanced performances as (respectively) divorced, 40-something photographer Mahmut and his distant relative Yusef, who arrives in Istanbul looking for work, and quickly wears out his welcome. Tensions mount, revealing solitude as the natural (if not preferred) state of these lonely, melancholy men. (In the context of this film, it's tragically ironic that Toprak was killed in an auto accident, at age 28, six months before his honors at Cannes.) With understated humor, Ceylan observes Mahmut and Yusef's chronic isolation, but he never passes judgment. Distant could've been made anywhere and it would yield the same visually seductive study of detachment. Tune into its wavelength and you'll find it unforgettable. --Jeff ShannonBestsellers in DVD
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