AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

l_rawjalaurence The echoes of Sergio Leone's classic ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968) in the English title of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's epic movie BİR ZAMANLAR ANADOLU'DA (ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA) are deliberate. The bulk of the story takes place in Central Anatolia, some thirty or so kilometers from the capital Ankara. Gökhan Tiryaki's cinematography captures the barrenness of the landscape by day and by night; the scrubland, rugged fauna and flora and harsh, unfeeling terrain suggesting a place that resists human colonization. It is a myth, a state of mind as well as a physical place - as Naci the police officer (Yılmaz Erdoğan) observes at one point, it resembles a "fairytale" that will continue to exist even after all of us have been transformed into dust. Timelessness is its watchword; the only way in which humankind can adjust to it is to accept rather than alter the balance of nature. It can be threatening (especially when the wind whistles through the trees, disrupting the autumn leaves), or it can be accommodating, depending on how we view it.Director Ceylan uses the landscape as the backdrop to a story that appears to follow a logical path and then frustrates us. A group of police officers, together with their suspects (Fırat Tanış, Burhan Yıldız), a doctor (Muhammed Uzuner) and a prosecutor (Taner Birsel) venture into the Anatolian wilds in the hope of discovering the body of a murder victim Yaşar (Erol Eraslan). The suspects are not quite sure of its whereabouts; but when they finally locate the body, it transpires that the police officers' assumptions prove catastrophically wrong.But Ceylan is not really interested in the logic of the murder; what concerns him more is how humankind become so obsessed with the minutiae of their existences that they blind themselves to the power of the landscapes they inhabit. Prosecutor Nusret and doctor Cemal are representatives of two professions dedicated to reasonable explanations of all phenomena, but even they become exasperated at some of the police officers' attention to banal details, such as where the borders between two rural areas have been drawn. All of them are quite literally transfixed by the angelic appearance of the young girl Cemile (Cansu Demirci), who distributes tea among them with such aplomb that it seems as if she has been sent by the deity, rather than by her father the local Mukhtar (or headman) (Ercan Kesal). At this moment Nusret and Cemal realize - perhaps for the first time - that their world is governed by higher, unreasonable powers that transcend the quotidian realities of the law and the medical profession. It is part of their tragedy that they recognize this too late in their lives.The film's ending is truly memorable, as Cemal conducts an autopsy on Yaşar's corpse, and consciously falsifies the evidence. But that issue is not really significant; what matters more is that he is a prisoner, both physical as well as mental, of his profession. He cannot take an innocent pleasure in the beauties of the landscape outside the hospital where he works, but remains bound to the factual realities of his job.As with most Ceylan movies, sound assumes as much importance as vision: the howling of the wolves and the chirping of the crickets reminding us of the presence of a vast natural world outside that of the protagonists; and the truly macabre sound of the corpse being cut up and the blood flowing into a metal bowl, contrasted with the innocent shouts of little children playing in the yard outside Cemal's hospital. ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA is a highly subtle movie, not least because of its clever use of names suggesting either some kinship between different characters (Cemal/ Cemile) or, perhaps more negatively, a meaninglessness associated with the practice of naming, especially when associated with the meaning of the Anatolian landscape. Ceylan's film might be long (150 minutes) but it represents a triumphant return to the themes of his earlier work.

Daniel Hirst 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.This review is taken from: amateurreviewspace.blogspot.com

AfroPixFlix The film's McGuffin is the search for where a body lies, and the raison dêtre is just…hmm, good question. Oh my, what a pitiful film. There are endemic limitations here that much better films scale handily, so don't be bullied into thinking this must be good art, despite what the critics say. AfroPixFlix had a foreboding feeling when the beautiful cinematography graced the screen during the very first scene. It featured three friends saying jovial but incomprehensible things to each other inside a dingy room. A gorgeous ensuing shot has one character standing outside with a barking dog and ambient traffic noise. These were portents to the strengths and weaknesses of the entire very, very long film right away. Great scenery and cinematography, but abysmal script writing, if there was a script. The thing just plods along to demonstrate that watching paint dry can be scenic if you have the right lighting and paint color, and maybe a stiff shot of milky and potent raki. If you treasure rustic Turkish countryside settings in darkness and dawn, then view this film without sound or subtitles. Perhaps go as far as placing a weather- beaten picture frame around your screen and throwing a Constantinoplean-themed party. Opa! Your guests might enjoy the sights, but the plot? How forgettable, if ever grasped. How introspection leads to isolation and realization of how whole classes of society are repressed? Too obfuscated by director Ceylon here. Rather, his unavoidable fixation is with a plethora self- absorbed Turkish public servants who crowd into cars to investigate a murder that really isn't a mystery at all. The only mystery is why AfroPixFlix wasted 157 minutes of precious life watching this. AfroPixFlix shovels about two kilos of dates and a forkful of dirt on this funereal Turkey.

eptggkod A true object of beauty- perfect in every way. Utterly lacking the crap factor of most everything Hollywood today. Cinematography is amazing- the story mysterious yet real- the characters grow on you like relatives or co-workers. If secretly the object of cinema is really to transport us out of our world into another then "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" is a true masterpiece IMO. A "Bicycle Thieves" for today.Like in that film there is an underlying compassion which pervades and like that film there is no artifice- it seemed to me they even used a real corpse as one of the characters. Reminded me at turns of Sergio Leone, French detective mysteries and driving through Wyoming- sparse, lonely, gray. This really does put "regular" films to shame...