Shot in black-and-white on a minuscule budget, KASABA (THE SMALL TOWN) is set in a remote area of Anatolia where life, it seems, has stood still. The farmers tend their sheep; the women work in the home; the men either sit watching the world go by or labor on the farms. Occasionally the pace of life is quickened by the visit of a traveling fun-fair.
In this apparently timeless world, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan conducts a searching analysis of the relationship of humanity to nature. The film begins in the village school during the depths of winter; as the children read about the importance of family and community as the basis of social life, the teacher (Latif Altıntaş) looks moodily out of the window, wishing he was anywhere but imprisoned in a classroom. The visual irony is painful - although preaching community, life at school is far from being so.
The action shifts to springtime and the annual funfair. Ceylan contrasts the iron and steel of the big dipper (and other attractions) with the timeless landscape in which they are placed. While the villagers scream with pleasure as they enjoy the rides, we are made aware that this is simply visceral; and should not be compared with our relationship to nature. Yet it seems that no one is much interested in sustaining that bond; little Ali (Cihat Bütün) kills insects with a stick, and turns a tortoise upside down so that it cannot move - it will eventually die of exhaustion. Meanwhile Saffet (Emin Toprak) remains detached both from the fun-fair and the landscape surrounding it.
The explanation for his behavior comes in the film's third movement set in the height of summer, when Ali and Saffet's family sit round a fire, talking to one another. We learn that Saffet feels constrained by life in a small town; desperate to escape, but without any real knowledge of what he wants to do. His uncle Emin (Sercihan Alevoğlu) has been abroad and received a university education, but has returned to his birth; his father (Emin Ceylan) wonders whether all that education was actually worth it. Director Ceylan offers a vivid portrait of small-town life; communities stick together through thick and thin, but the opportunities for growth are limited. On the other hand, the pull of the community is so strong that it can seem suffocating, especially for Saffet.
As the film unfolds, so its complexities increase. Both Emin and the father are fond of telling stories handed down to them by their ancestors - of myths, legends, as well as the more immediate past. Historically these tales were designed to emphasize the value of community; but here they are rejected by the family. They tend to express their frustrations openly; their lack of opportunities, the problems of relating to one another, and the ever-present threat of death. Ceylan creates a portrait of a rural family unable (or perhaps unwilling) to cope with changing times; at times his vision of impending doom is positively Chekhovian in tone.
There is no easy way out of this dilemma: perhaps the only way we can resolve it is to accept that we are governed by the elements. The importance of this dictum is emphasized through repeated shots of the protagonists putting their hands into the river, walking through fields of maize, or standing alone, their shadows visible against the vast landscape beyond.
A slow yet beautifully shot film, in which each frame tells us something about the characters' relationship to their environments, KASABA is a work of near-genius.
