Tepenin ardi - Beyond the Hill

The film is technically a masterpiece. The long periods of silence succeeding natural sounds incorporate the viewer into the scenery and the atmosphere.

The key to the comprehension of the movie is the closeted parallel of this archaic in manners Turkish family with the modern state. What prevails is suspiciousness against imaginative external enemies as well as hidden guilt between the members of the inner family. The outcome is quite tragicomic and indicative of the obsessions and artificial dead ends which point at the "foreign" as the source of all our woes.

I also underlined the scene where the little girl with all its innocence states that we are also nomads, so "these" nomads won't do us any harm. The mature man replies that "they are bad nomads" and so differ from the morally immaculate family.

I was lucky enough to catch this at this years International Berlin Festival. The director was realistic about the eventual outcome of the movie I suppose, but still the fact he made this movie is something that should be celebrated. It's a really remarkable movie, with standout performances by the cast. And while it does revolve around violence, none is actually really shown.

Which makes the whole thing even more intriguing and more arresting at the same time. Human interactions are the main course, with our instincts, drives and fears being dissected very slowly and for all to see. You can see things coming, but it seems to be impossible to stop them. It's in our nature. While this is a pessimistic view of things (or at least my interpretation of it), this is an amazing movie, that I cannot recommend highly enough!

One of those Turkish not so easily and pace running movies. VERY slow and boring cinematography.

I get surprised to find Beyond the Hill being treated as master class in film making cause it's very bad in directing and acting.

Have had so many similar story telling and director of photography waiting so much from its audience, sound editing is outrage and beyond new era film making.

Being living abroad and expecting what my country can make really sucks. Don't give me award winning excuse cause really not sure how they get prizes but can only convince 7-8 theaters for screening. There must be something wrong somewhere! I hate to say it's hard breaking to watch a film long enough where it should have been only 15 Min's...

Set in a wild, isolated landscape, TEPENIN ARDI tells a simple tale of a warring family trying to sustain a rural existence yet perpetually threatened by the presence of nomads "beyond the hill" (hence the film's title). I learn from one of the other reviews that director Emin Alper describes the film as an allegory of the contemporary Republic of Turkey and its fear of invasion from (unidentified) neighbors. If this is the case, then I would also observe that, internally speaking, the Republic is in dire straits. The family in this film seem incapable of relating to one another: patriarch Faik (Tamer Levent) believes that son Nusret (Reha Ozcan) had been a failure, while Mehmet (Mehmet Ozgur) reluctantly acquiesces to Faik's orders. Youngster Zafer (Berk Hakman) is tormented by dreams; and frequently goes off on his own, while Meryem (Banu Fotocan) fetches and carries for everyone. Alper's film seems more interested in depicting internal strife rather than being concerned with outside threats. While the film has plenty to say in thematic terms, its cinematic style is wearyingly evocative of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, with plenty of long shots (and characters moving side to side within the frame, rendering it a very flat piece of work), minimal soundtrack and few direct close-ups on the actors. Although only ninety minutes long, the narrative comes to a virtual standstill on occasions.

Emin Alper's Beyond the Hill is a master class in film making and in particular the use of sound in movies. With a soundtrack composed of only natural sounds found in nature and without any music (except at the very last scene) Alper manages to build unbearable tension.

A small landowner has punished some people living beyond a hill whose goats were grazing in his land by taking one of their goats and killing it to make a feast for his son and grand sons who are visiting him. Will those people now take revenge and what form would that be? From the moment the landowner's family arrive Alper builds up the tension expertly and manages to maintain this tension throughout the film.

In the Q&A after the screening Alper confirmed that his film is a political allegory about Turkey and its neighbors. In parts it is reminiscent of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and clearly Emin Alper is a name to watch out for.