Uzak (Distant)

Wr & Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Starring: Muzaffer Ozdemir, Mehmet Emin Toprak
Turkey 2002, 15, 110 mins,

Uzak,an award-winning Turkish film, is an affectingly tale about two cousins. Middle-aged photographer Mahmut (Ozdemir) lives in Istanbul. Mahmut is going through a difficult divorce (since he still loves his wife) and is very set in his ways. His younger cousin Yusuf (Toprak) is in his 30’s. Unable to find work at home, he comes to live with his older cousin hoping to find work but finds that life in the big city is no easier, jobs are just as hard to come by and he’s living with a cousin who is fussy, anti-social and even distrusting. The joy of the film is watching how they interact, you get a very real feel for their difficulties.

The film won the Grand Prix prize at the 2003 Cannes and also a justified Best Actor prize, given to both lead actors jointly. This was with particular poignancy as Mehmet Emin Toprak died in a car crash shortly after making the film, and the prize therefore had to be awarded to him posthumously. Both actors do give excellent performances, Toprak slightly shades it merely because his character, the luckless younger cousin man who simply wants to get a job, is the more sympathetic.

Where Uzak as a film truly succeeds is in the fact that this is grim view of real lives and sadly its recognisable as such. It comes with unhappiness, a longing for something better, a desire to escape the daily monotony, with both men looking at women and wishing they could make a first move but without the confidence to say what they feel. It may not sound like a barrel of laughs but its capture of a sense of realism is second-to-none and the build-up of tension between the two men (landlord cousin finding fault in behaviour of his relative) is well handled. One hopes Uzak will find decent-sized audiences, it deserves to.

Matt Arnoldi