A Árvore dos Frutos Selvagens

Turkish master filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan's follow-up to his superb WINTER SLEEP is another intimate epic. Again, over 3 hours long, but, focused on a writer, Sinan. The writer here is a young college graduate determined to not only publish his first novel, but, also to break free from his father, Idris - a teacher who also had wild ambition, but, never succeeded. While the story is simple, Ceylan plunges at length into his characters. A couple of sequences truly stand out: First, is an accidental meeting with a young woman the writer once had his eye one, but, who is now headed, unenthusiastically, into a marriage. The scene plays out in 'real time'. Long past the point where a conventional movie would have moved on. At first it draws the viewer in, and, later, makes one feel almost uncomfortable. As if intruding on a private moment. Even more awkward is a long sequence where Sinan meets a successful local author. They engage. Then spar. Then quarrel. All of the audaciousness and frustrations of Sinan play out over the extended scenes. Despite the tight nature of the plot, Ceylan isn't a 'drawing room' type of filmmaker. He uses the vast Turkish landscape as a means of showing how small a man can be against such a harsh environment. As I noted: an intimate epic. In the end, WILD PEAR TREE doesn't work as well as a WINTER SLEEP, or his masterwork, ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA. The central character isn't quite interesting enough to carry the length of the movie. And, the relationship arc with the father is rather easy to discern long before the half-way point. PEAR isn't a movie for the casual filmgoer. But, it is one to savor should one want to plunge themselves into this world - like diving into a densely detailed novel.

It has been 21 years since Ceylan shot his first feature film Kasaba, whose main theme was an intellectual young man's desperate, family-stuck life in the countryside with no way out. After this film throughout his film career he focused on different themes as well of course, from middle class criticism (Climates) to film noir (Three Monkeys). But, being from Turkey, eventually in his last movies he returned to the countryside tales again. Especially this movie, The Wild Pear Tree, seemed to me as if Ceylan suffered from a partial amnesia and forgot that he shot the movie Kasaba. So he blended this "brand new film idea" with his recently developed film aesthetics and here we have The Wild Pear Tree.

In his first movies Ceylan barely had a story, he only had "themes". The rest of the movie was wonderful photography and this is what he got famous for. Then, founding clever collaborations, he learnt how to tell stories as well. But the question here is: does he really have a new story to tell? Turkey has changed a lot since Kasaba, but Ceylan's representations look like they are here to stay eternally. For instance, while Ceylan still hold on to the "intellectual stuck in the countryside" stereotype, intellectuals in the Turkish countryside either made it to the metropolises or they are replaced/outdated by the emerging religious elite.

So instead of telling a new story, Ceylan seems like he chose to "garnish" what he already has, with neverending dialogues unattached to each other. Dialogue with the girl, dialogue with the mayor, with the businessman, with the writer, with the police friend, with the imams and with this and this and this. Kind of a video game, one "countryside monster" at a time. So I think this movie is a rococo remake of minimalist Kasaba.

So if you tolerate the theatrical lines in the first dialogues, the movie is a nice one to see. But in comparison to the last 2 movies of Ceylan, this is certainly a step backwards (and surprisingly, this backwardness is evident also in the photography).

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is arguably the best director Turkey has ever seen and Ahlat Agaci is definitely one of the best films in recent years that has been made by Turkish directors.

The plot, the acting and the cinematography is simply incredible. As a guy who lives in Turkey, it's very rare to see films with a quality. So in that way, I can easily say that Ahlat Agaci is the best movie in the past 4-5 years.

What stood out for me in the film was that you basically never get bored even though the film is quite long. No unnecessary scenes, no characters that you hate everytime you see them. Definitely a thing to consider.

NBC is so undervalued and underrated, at least in his homecountry. Interestingly enough, European cinema appreciates him and he almost always participates in Cannes Film Festival, but I'm %100 sure that half of Turkey doesn't even know his name. It's sad, but it also says a lot about the general look to cinema sector in Turkey.

Thanks to people like NBC, though, we can watch 'real' and 'non-American made' films.

Quality film by an incredible director. 10/10

Watching Nuri Bilge Ceylan's film 'Ahlat Agaci' ('The Wild Pear Tree') is a cinematic experience that I would compare to reading some of the books of the classics of Russian literature. It's not easy reading, but it's catchy. The length of the books or of the movie exceeds the average, but as a viewer you do not feel the passage of time, because the writers or the film director in this case absorb you in their worlds. As in Chekhov, the characters of Ceylan's film live in a provincial city and the adjoining village, in a socially suffocating atmosphere and are surrounded by a human landscape composed of people unable to understand their intellectual aspirations. The Russian books (Tolstoy's for example) and Ceylan's films contain philosophical or historical diversions that give them an universal and perennial content that crosses the boundaries of geography and time.

Sinan Karasu is a young man who returns to his city and to his non-functional family after graduating college. The prospects of a college graduate are not too many or too attractive: either to take a teacher's exam after which he will be assigned to teach at a primary school in a remote area of Turkey, or join the army or the police. His father, Idris, is a teacher, but also a betting addict, which got him into debts, and led the family to losing the property of their house and living at the edge of a precarious existence. Idris's ambition seems to be to return to his native village, where in weekends he digs a fountain on a hillside, with little hope of ever hitting water. Young Sinan is also a writer, he wrote a book inspired by the local people and culture, but the kind of non-commercial book that finds neither editor nor reader public. The gaps between his aspirations and realities, between his ambitions and the mediocrity around are huge, and the result is a permanent conflict with a world with which he tries to entertain dialogues, but which he also approaches with a sense of intellectual superiority without foundation in social realities.

Like many other good movies (or books or other works of art), 'Ahlat Agaci' can be viewed and understood at several levels. At the personal level, the film has complex characters that we discover and we get to know better and better as we advance in the viewing, with the help the excellent acting performances of actors such as Dogu Demirkol, Murat Cemcir and Bennu Yildirimlar . There is also a political and social layer that is never explicit, maybe in order to allow the film to be easily distributed in Turkey and thus be accessible to the local audience, which is probably very important for a director like Nuri Bilge Ceylan, but also because true creators know how to convey messages without transforming their works into manifestos. Finally, there is a philosophical layer, more or less related to the main story, but which raises interesting issues such as the compromises that a writer is bound to make to gain popularity and what are their limits, or the relationship between religion and its institutions and their relevance in social life. Ceylan knows to tell a story and to film beautifully, and attentive viewers will also benefit from short moments of surreal insertions that deserve not to be missed. The film is long but in rare moments it feels so (the scene of the conversation with the two imams is the only one in which I had the impression that the cutting of a few minutes would have been beneficial), and the spectators will be rewarded at the end with one of the most exciting film finales which I have seen lately. A movie to see.

The wind rises as Sinan and Hatice kiss at a spring on the outskirts of the forest. It is the threshold of many things, not merely the forest. A few steps in the right direction will lead to love and the fulfillment of dreams. The wrong steps invite heartbreak and the crushing weight of societal expectations. Which way to go?! While Sinan inspires Hatice to let her hair down, a big step in Turkey, he can't seem to help himself. The gambling addiction, fawning desire to please and wild schemes of his father are not where Sinan wants to go, yet understanding his father is the key to understanding himself, for better or worse. Wild pears are isolated misfits, and so are father and son.

This witty and beautiful film is full of metaphors, wonderful imagery and deep, intriguing conversations. The film revolves around many interesting themes. Among these themes is that ruptures in the soul should be treated with joy and patience for they help us discover who we are. The cinematography is luminous, mesmerizing and far ranging from lamp lit streets at night, rainfall and close-ups of Hatice's flowing hair. I want to linger in each place. It is a long film, but for what it reveals about contemporary Turkish society and human nature, it is a fantastic bargain and worth the price. From the director of Winter Sleep and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Seen at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.