Afloat

Just saw this movie at the mostra Valencia, a mediterranean movie festival, which is celebrating its 38^th edition and s becoming an important festival.

Afloat is as Mediterranean as it gets, Besides mesmerising beauty of the Egean sea, the contradicting temperaments of the Mediterranean wife versus the Anglo Saxon husband is so apparent.

Afloat is a slow burning family drama with a very solid script, character development and prime acting to back it up is the strength of the movie.

Altough filmed in very tight spaces, you never get the feeling of.claustrophobia, on the contrary, there is a certain openness.to it.

The queston/anwer part at the end of the movie was.very satisfying and entertaining. The director, who directed her own father as an acting debut, could be proud of her casting choices.

Afloat is a strong candidate for the jury prize of the Valencia film festival.

Well expressed subject in such a small space.

The relationship between all family members seem loose but infact there is a strong bond between them. The hidden messages are given very good.

Such as althought it wasn't a big surprise to find out that it was the father who have stolen the passport i could not realise that the family members have already found out the truth but kept it secret in them, when the girls saw their father leavimg they were not surprised at all.

The only thing i was not clear with is , that why did the father could not have contacted the girls for seven years if not in jail where was he than.

A very good film i am happy to have watched it.

The actors and the actrsses were real characters and the story was well set.

I saw AFLOAT at Mostra de València Film Festival. Since watching and falling in love with Asghar Farhadi's A SEPARATION, it is the first time I felt complete empathy with all the characters of a movie and found myself rooting for all of them. The Turkish director Aslihan Unaldi takes relationships, secrets and conflicts and mixes them with the culture, religion and political elements of Turkey. This film lets you in on how the justice system works in a place where some of us may be ignorant about and at the same time makes us realize how human experience is very similar regardless of the culture, religion and region. I highly recommend AFLOAT.

On the surface, the film looks like a boat vacation of an upper middle class family, but it contains many layers that are skillfully woven together.

On the one hand, the beauty of the Aegean is on display, while on the other hand, the emotional tension within the family, which persists in almost every scene, is a nice emphasis on the fact that emotions do not recognize class differences.

The characters unfold beautifully, none of them are black and white, with their pros and cons, just like real-life people. The inner worlds, personality traits and emotional states of all the main characters are3 very skillfully rendered.

It is also pleasing to see a film that goes beyond the hidden assumption that "Middle Eastern art cinema must necessarily deal with themes of oppression and poverty".

I would like to watch it again.

Afloat weaves intricate family matters very well. Initially it may seem as if the movie portrays a privileged segment of society uncritically, but when looking deeper it becomes clear that the director criticizes the shallow understanding of the division between the rich and the poor / the educated vs the ignorant. The whole story comes together as a dissection of the alienated intellectual class in contemporary society through the portrayal of the self-centered journalist father. The film also stands out in its depiction of complex and layered woman characters. It is also refreshing to see female sexuality at the center of the movie.