Bugday

I'm sorry but this movie was a complete waste of time, why 2 stars and not 1 because the actors were still quite decent.

This movie goes from one fallacy to the next, irrational and uncohesive for the most part. Clearly had some propaganda in it for the Islam as it had a decent amount of quoted lines from the Qur'an and some clearly Islamic habits.

The only thinking it got me to do was what next stupid thing is the producer going to bring out next and what is his next flaw going to be.

It's clear the writer and producer where the same person and it was just a terrible move.

Let me do some guessing, I FEEL like that the producer was trying to produce a masterpiece like other great philosophers have done, such as Plato and his Plato's Cave, however he failed completely miserably. Probably due to not enough skills in being a philosopher, writer and/or director. It's a shame because the plot/synopsis looked very promising.

Edit/addition: People, animals and everything living thing does things with a reason. Sure people might hallucinate or dream. However why would anyone want to watch a random dream that's not cohesive at all.

Also gray-scale makes it look more apocalyptic, however if you need to use gray-scale to achieve such effects than you did a horrible elsewhere, such as in the scenery/decor or costumes. Talking is also kept to a minimum with dialogue that is either uninteresting or doesn't have much of a point (or both). It's basically watching an old movie with a bit of sound added. The difference, old movies did a good job conveying their plot and having a (interesting) plot. Again the movie does NOT at all show what is written in the synopsis. Again I suspect one (or a bit of both) of the following issues. Director/writer either thinks to highly of his work (or himself) and feels like he's spreading knowledge, like a Plato, Socrates, Aristoteles, etc. Or the director/writer/etc just took on too much work for 1 person.

Btw plot/synopsis, last time I read it doesn't describe the movie well.

I love this film with all my heart. Much better than expected.. Good acting and good camera.. The only real question is how many awards will this win. See this film, it's utterly incredible. you'll see how much better it becomes. The technical side of the movie is practically flawless.It was a good movie!

Tried to do a Sufi based movie but not able because i believe it looks ilke a good show for the eyes. The essence was not sensable. Looks ilke memorizing sentences from Sufi-Islamic literature with good camera.

I am certainly very impressed and touched by every second of Grain. Tremendous attribution to all very good human examples from Prophet Moses to Porphet Muhammed (sav) also great thinkers like Yunus,and numerous others whom tried to understand and reminded us human journey's limitations & efficient use need. Andrei is obviously Andrei Tarkovsky in some point their road seperated because their search needs were different.

Breath or Grain you may read this as spirit or material. Both are not different as western world scholars thought us. There is no borders between them and they grow together.

Everything in the film is happening right now. We are all witnessing to Middle East, Latin America, some Asian countries divisions and how their resources stolen by some countries. They are not right but at the moment they have the power. But with this power also they are destroying themselves.

Semih Kaplanoglu gave an examle during one of his interviews; "While people are starving in Sudan, there are grains grown to sell to Europe in fertile soil covered with electric tails one or two steps away." The film goes out of the way of the world's question, how we can cure the present disorder. Disorders; desire for constant and continuous growth. We can compare the problem to cancer,which wants to grow up without stopping; Until it is impossible to grow constantly with limited resources, people break down the habitat they live on, and eventually environmental disasters and hunger that have not been seen throughout history have become prominent.

If you do not know much about this part of the world, its heritage and culture it will be difficult to understand but watch this film and then you can read about more to understand it. You will surely enjoy more in time by widening your harizon.

The director Semih Kaplanoglu has a succesful cinema discography. His last film "Grain" is raising his cinematographic level to top!

Grain presents an excellent visual narration making feel the taste of Bela Tar, Andrei Tarkovsky, Pawel Pawlikowsky or Alfonso Cuaron movies. Also, by the context of dark storytelling and using mystic-religious references to tell a distopic story, the movie evokes Darren Aronofsky movies. However, these tastes signify only evoking materials; Kaplanoglu has achieved a genuine and peculiar cinema langue containing authentic, local and oriental images and narratives some of which refer to Kur'an.

Only disturbing content of movie, especially for me, Grain present an open-ended expression on the contradiction/combination of science and spiritual-religious beliefs within the story of an apocalyptic future where people strive against scarsity and poverty. Hence, some of possible interpretations can radically change main suggestions of the movie and many viewers (like me) could dislike some of these conclusions. The director's ideo-political position (close to actual political power in Turkey) may give some clues on what he has tried to express by his movie but, looking for the meaning out of this movie could lead us to false notions.

Despite this, I loved this movie very very much.