A Pequena Cidade

I can tell you this movie with 3 words. natural, poetic and amateur.

The first scenes that take place in a classroom were the best scenes i think in the movie. Especially higly realistic atmosphere makes you feel that you are with the characters and you are like one of the characters. Animals and people are coherent with the mother nature and Ceylan shows us the most primitive way. Images are perfect but also dialogues are too. When i watch speeches in the woods at night took me to my childhood and i believe the parents talkings never change at any time. We understand from the parents boys do not please their life and this incompatibility feeling keeps going during the story.

This is a very fresh and unusual film that explores the experiences of two children in a small rural town in Turkey in a slow and stylized manner. It seems to encapsulate the experiences of one year into a day, with the morning and school set in the winter, the journey home in the spring, and the evening in the summer/autumn, giving the film a very different feel to it. It possesses a dream like quality, even at times blending dreams with reality.

Despite occasional spots where the camera movement is not very smooth, certainly a problem of the budget, etc., the cinematography is fresh and beautiful, very artistic. In fact, the focus on the senses and how the characters see and feel everything is one of the great strengths of this film, such as when the children are picking fruit in a cemetery and the wind picks up, blowing through the forest, or when their older cousin is loafing around at a fair.

There is no real "plot" with nothing to address and nothing in particular happening, etc., but that is not important here. The film does a great job at achieving its apparent purpose of presenting a thoughtful, sensitive, beautiful, even poetic image of these kids' normal experiences during a finite period of time.

The acting on the whole is very good. This is particularly true at the meal/fireside of the family in the woods, where the people roast maize/corn and children doze off listening to grandparents, parents, and cousin tell stories, argue, etc., in a very realistic manner that grips the viewer despite the slow pace and lack of any real event.

One of the main problems with the film is that there are some gaps or missing elements in the screenplay/development. An example is the introduction of the older cousin into the film in the first part. We see him, but have no idea who he is. how he relates to the two children, what he is doing there, etc. In fact, at first it almost seems like he is reminiscing and that the scenes of childhood are his memories. Similarly, the scenes of him at the fair are visually interesting and beautiful, but their value is hindered by the fact that the viewer has no idea what the point of this portion is, what is going on, or who this guy is. I found that this hampered the beginning and made it slightly confusing, so one didn't understand the value of it.

Another slight problem is that some shots seem to last a little too long for no real reason. This overall makes sense throughout the movie, considering its slow, dreamlike pace and emphasis on senses. However, sometimes, as when the camera sits on the kids' father as he thinks in the house near the end, it lasts too long without any apparent point artistically, etc. This is not too common, though.

In the end, this is a slightly flawed, but creative, contemplative, and beautiful film. It is not, however, a film for those demanding a real "plot" or action, etc.

Kasaba is the feature film debut of Nuri Bilge Ceylan. I think that movie is not one of the best films of Ceylan, not even in my top 5. But when I look at Kasaba, I can clearly see how great and skillful he is. That's a delightful piece of filmmaking.

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.