Kerr

A stranger comes to town... It is how a story is started according to Tolstoy : ''All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town."

A town where everybody seems a bit weird and sticking their nose into everybody's business. The same people are full of fear and worries and yet here comes the rabid dogs and holes on the groud all around.

A middle aged man tries to make sense of it all with little help from his senses because everything he sees or feels seems unreal or his senses feel untrustable. He tries hard to get out of this mundane circle of weird coincidences.

If you wanna have a psychological thriller tonight, Pirselimoglu's ''Kerr'' is your pick, don't miss it!

Kerr is the film adapted from Tayfun Pirselimoglu's novel (with the same title) published in 2014.

First of all, it's very obvious from every frame that Pirselimoglu is also a writer and a painter. In addition to being an adaptation, the film is linked to the literature with many other references; my favorite was Kafka - The Trial homage (not only this reference, but the story and the depressing setting are quite Kafkaesque). Speaking of the painter, the director and the cinematographer should definitely be congratulated for the mise-en-scene and cinematography; frames, horizontal-vertical elements, perspective, light, camera angles, each one is admirable.

I didn't listen to the director's interview, frankly, I don't know if he has such an intention; however, the film seems to be open to interpretation with its overflowing metaphors and surreal narrative. What I understand from the movie is about of our lead character named Can, who was not very touch with his sick father when he was alive, and the nightmares he fought in his subconscious as a result of the guilt when the father is dead.

Very clearly Can does not belong to the city / unnamed place upon the death of his father, shown almost in every scene of the movie. Is this "outsider" son the nameless Stranger of Camus, who arrives in the village after his mother's death?

Also most probably the nameless and timeless city is subconscious: gray and gloomy, roaming in dilapidated ruins, the floor is always wet (Tarkovsky - Mirror-like*), the attics where it wanders, the surreal inhabitants of the city, the dialogues and stories. And dreams - there is a very open reference to Shining bar scene and a Lynchian amusement park scene supported by mise-en-scène. The hotel and pavilion, which I consider to be the other dream place, may also be a reference to something, I couldn't catch it, but it's Kubrick-like in any case. And another piece of evidence - "Who are you?" that Can asks the only woman character in the movie. Her response in retirn is "Why don't you just ask yourself" - meaning actually I am you, the demons you fight, the alter egos you perhaps don't want to see. Likewise, the black hole is like the subconscious gateway, where we throw away many things, including our fear; At the end of the movie, the passage that grows big enough for Can to get out and finally saves him from the nightmare (I will return to these two at the end of the critic).

*Also very well adopted (or inspired by) the Tarkovsky mise-en-scène. In many scenes, it feels like as if we're watching Tarkovsky movie collages over many indoor and outdoor spaces. Of course, with the dullness and passive being of the protagonist.

Similarly, the repeated expression "it's very dangerous outside" can be the self's defense mechanism, a series of paraniod states and meaningless events created by the ego, which feels constantly under threat. Armed outside, rabid dogs barking, all roads closed, no going out; there is just no escape from the subconscious yet!

As psychology suggests, we know that you can only deal with this fear with support from your alter ego. In other words, at the end of the movie, Can escapes from the "killer" alter ego (he may think he killed his father by negligence), fearing that he will subconsciously destroy himself throughout the movie, but reconciles with him, gets in the same "car", but then crosses the last threshold by crossing the time tunnel, the roads are opened in a controlled manner. And he can subconsciously get rid of the nightmares that chase him.

And the finale, a masterpiece of editing technique; With the transition from the car radio to the radio station with a sound bridge, he bids us farewell from the subconscious and from yhe movie, it's only the music that remains.

Yesterday I had the pleasure to see «Kerr» and «Earwig», two films that could intrigue and fascinate whoever sees them. However, some may get desperate because they do not "explain" in detail what is happening, while others can follow the flow of captivating images and sounds that build the story.

«Kerr» was chosen among the 15 finalists to compete for the 2023 Academy Award for Best International Film. It is a drama tinged with "thriller" elements that, in the end, escapes generic limitations and takes flight like a Kafkaesque fable, that also penetrates the realm of magical realism, with a smile that at times seems like a grimace of horror.

Directed by Turkish writer, painter, and filmmaker Tayfun Pirselimoglu, it is his seventh feature and the first adaptation he has made of his own work, the homonymous novel «Kerr». From that rich cultural baggage emerges a dramatically crafted work by this multi-award-winning author of extensive bibliography, and a visually inspiring movie thanks to award-winning cinematographer Andreas Sinanos, a collaborator on several masterpieces by Thodoros Angelopoulos.

A certain Can (Senocak), a gray man, owner of a printing press, returns to his hometown when his father, the beloved town tailor, dies. When he is waiting at the train station to return to the city, he witnesses a crime in the bathroom. The killer does not care that Can saw the crime. He calmly cleans the bloody knife and his coat and disappears. Can reports the murder to the Police, but only succeeds in getting his personal identity card taken away and being forced to remain in town.

The stay, despite the expressions of affection from residents that remember him as a child, gradually turns into a nightmare. A pack of rabid dogs harasses the town, constantly patrolled by armed policemen on foot, motorcycles and helicopters, while one of the residents warns him to be careful with "the holes", one of which Can saw in the basement of the old paternal house.

Suddenly, the town is in quarantine and a curfew is declared, everyone asks him what he thinks of the political situation, what he thinks of the country, and he does not know what to answer, but the most terrifying thing for Can is his reunion with the murderer, who holds a secret conversation with the widow of the man he murdered, in a building in ruins (which reminded me of the abandoned School of the Americas, in the Panamá Canal Zone, where American instructors taught repressive tactics and tortures to Latin American soldiers in the past century). The woman constantly reappears, and a poster reveals that she once danced onstage as Princess Scheherazade. Can's life becomes a whirlpool, until he too will arrive at his appointment with destiny.

As admirable as «Earwig» for moviegoers who keep the flame of good cinema alive, «Kerr» is also recommended viewing.