Nietzsche's Umbrella

There are two different genres in the film. One of them is a Tarkovski / Rene Magritte experimental cinema that contains dozens of philosophical and literary references from The Brothers Karamazov to Nietzsche, from existentialist philosophy to the blind librarian Borges, from Neyzen Tevfik and "Tabutta Rovesata" to the Hindu nihilist Jiddu Krishnamurti. I must mention that this first genre is very successful for a first film. The second genre in the film is an attempt for a detective/crime story. I call the second genre an experiment because unfortunately it is not as successful as the first one. Actually, the director tried to tell what he could tell in the shortest time possible. That's for sure. But the missing parts of the detective story unfortunately reduce the value of the film. A film of 130-140 minutes could easily have been made from the material in this story. But could a film of this length have been accepted by festivals? Or could a few action scenes in Russia have been added to the film to tell the missing pieces of the mafia story? Probably, with the film's budget of fifty thousand dollars in total, the director's possibilities were extremely limited.

Actually, the real question here should be: Is the director's main priority this detective story genre or the story of the nihilist Burak? Although there is no clear answer to this question, the masterful combination of these two genres in the film's finale makes the film one of the must-see art films of the recent period. As we watch the film's finale with the music of the Yansimalar group, each of us is left alone with our own existential crises. Just like a strange pleasure after reading The Brothers Karamazov or Nietzsche...

The anti-hero character is a passive protagonist and he is very much swayed by the events unfolding around him. Burak, the main character of the film, is to a certain extent a character who is at peace with being a loser. He is a philosophy assistant who translates philosophy books that do not sell more than ten copies, who cannot get the money from the publishing house for the ones he translates, who has been rejected many times from the doctoral thesis he has been working on for years... Not to mention the fact that he has to take care of his blind uncle who is a book seller and that he has not been able to make a music album for years.

It's an interesting movie that you won't see on online platforms because it's a relatively experimental and disturbing movie. Although the supporting characters are a bit one-dimensional, the dialogues are very well designed. When I researched the actors after watching the movie, I was not surprised to see that Erkan Baylav received the Afife Jale 2024 award. His acting in the single shot discussion scene and the camp scenes was extremely successful. In the credits of the movie, the director wrote about his inspirations such as Nietzsche, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, Tabutta Rövesata and Gary Kasparov. This is a sweet anecdote. The director's first novel, Mahser-i Cümbüs, which I read years ago, contained a similar "universe of references". Since I was able to catch many references to that first novel in this movie, it was a much more meaningful viewing for me. Another interesting anecdote is that the screenplay for Nietzsche's Umbrella was adapted from the author's fourth book, Çöl Replikleri, which has not been published yet.

The film is narrated through the eyes of the main character Burak. The fact that Burak, who is a passive character, is sometimes left out of the developing events stands out as a deficiency in the script. Robert McKee describes the passive main character as in conflict with some aspects of his own nature, pursuing his desire internally while being passive towards the outside. Burak's avoidance of controversy as much as possible and his attempt to get away from the city life is not only an escape but also a conscious choice. Therefore, in the film, passive main character is not a deficiency in the script, but as an attitude that complements the main character Burak.

On the other hand, what I see as a deficiency in the film is a different subject than the passive main character. Since the audience watches the film from Burak's point of view, the audience have to struggle with questions that we will never learn the answers to. Maybe the director could have included Burak directly in the crime story of Serkan and Altug to make the script more holistic and satisfying. The audience could have watched a more satisfying film by finding answers to all the questions. But as far as I understand, the director's priority was to tell Burak's story rather than the crime story. Unfortunately, these two different stories can not be able to complement each other. Hence my final point can not be more than 6 out of 10.

The most challenging issue in the film was to convey the crime story to the audience in the most convincing and satisfying way. If the film was to position Burak as the main character, he could not be only a passive viewer. However, Burak could not actively take part in this crime story, either. That's because the film could not clearly separate Burak's nihilistic worldview and philosophical stance from Serkan and Altug's story. It would be the worst choice to narrate the development of the crime story via dialogues. The director has decided to have Serkan, as an external narrator, tell the summary of crime story within years as a 'pill information' supported by images. That choice is neither successful or a failure, just like the whole film. It is really a strange film. Some scenes like the one at the police station really seems amateur, but some scenes like village & ney owen are surprisingly strong. Also the unexpected ending increased my rating for the film.