Nuri Bilge Ceylan, my favourite Turkish director. Finally, he is awarded as the best director of Cannes Festival, with his last movie “Three Monkeys”.
I need to explain that I do not like to glorify anyone or anything, but I really should accept my special weakness for Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s movies.
In my second year in Turkey (2000) I was invited to cinema to watch his movie “Clouds of May – Mayıs Sıkıntısı”. Nuri Bilge Ceylan has stared his restful mom and dad. This movie’s flow was so special and independent with its sensuality, poetry, silence and peacefulness. As destiny of such silent and slow motional movies, unfortunately at the break of it, half of the cinema was emptied. In fact at the end I was just shocked and I had a Tarkovskyan taste in my mouth (movie’s end soundtrack was the same with the one of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, composed by Edward Artemiy) . I believed that this guy is really good in his job and especially in photography as he came from that past and every time I was expecting his new masterpieces with impatience. Afterwards I got his first long film “The Small Town – Kasaba”, built on the spiritual world on three generation of a family living in a small town. And I should accept that I fell in love with the windy scenes, so artistic and full of poetry. The following masterpiece of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, was “Distant -Uzak” , awarded in Cannes 2003 with Grand Prix and Best Actor Prize. As cited by Guardian, "A real jewel, a truly beautiful film". Some pieces of our post-modern lives and relationships are significantly expressed in this film.
In 2006 comes “Climates – İklimler” stared by Nuri bilge Ceylan and his talented actress wife Ebru Ceylan. He challenges people’s life and inner selves with the climates. This film was so discussed in Turkey, especially the hot scene played by Nuri Bilge Ceylan himself, feminist ones couldn't stop themselves from criticizing his role as a an egoist macho etc etc. But I could say loudly that this film’s feelings and scent are so real and true. Maybe that’s why it was awarded with Fipresci Price 2006.
And lastly, comes his “Three Monkeys – Üç Maymun” 2008, with which Nuri Bilge Ceylan was selected as the best director. I can not say anything about this movie as Istill could not watch it, but it seems so unusual and different work referring to his previous ones. Like “Climates” this film also is shooted in Digital format and printed in 35 mm. And as I have seen in the film photos, Nuri Bilge Ceylan has experimented his best in photography scenes. I am feeling really impatient and I am thinking how to resist till November (the appraisal show time of “three monkeys” here in Turkey). Meanwhile, I'm sure this movie will expand the number Nuri Bilge Ceylan's fans in Turkey, which does not pass the 100,000's. Anyway I don't think that this is a big problem for him.
For more info about Nuri Bilge Ceylan and his masterpieces, click here.
