The films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan

by Yusuf Güven /

To the memory of Mehmet Emin Toprak

Turkish cinema, as in the whole Europe, encountered a very deep crisis at the beginning of 90s. While Hollywood films’ box offices were becoming more successful with the interest of the young generations which are grown up by neo liberal values in 80s and impact of the cultural imperialism, the audience of the local cinema was decreasing dramatically. The solution was very simple, to fight against Hollywood with its weapon which created a very clear distinction in Turkish cinema. At one side were the commercial films which became successful with the reproduction of the techniques and dramatic structure of the American cinema. These films are only for the local market.

On the other side a new generation of the filmmakers began to shoot their films with their own way of doing cinema which is more universal compared to the commercial films. Different from the earlier directors they were prolific and successful in telling their own stories. It is not easy to categorize these films – and I will not choose a simple solution like calling them “new Turkish cinema” – but some common characteristics may be drawn. First of all most of the new films are minimalist in the means of not only budget but also the staff of the film. Some of the directors like Nuri Bilge Ceylan act also in their own films. Second, in contrary to the growing tension in the society the stories of those films are told in a very humanistic way which is also true for the political films. I believe even the films with most brutal subjects stress on humanism metaphorically. Third, although Yilmaz Güney is still the main reference for the Turkish cinema, the references for the new filmmakers are mostly from abroad, directors like Ozu, Tarkovsky, Antonioni, Kiarostami or writers like Dostoyevsky, Chekhov. Finally, while the interest of the local audience for new Turkish films decreases because of the Hollywood domination in the market, the international popularity of the films is increasing gradually.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is the most well known and successful representative of this new generation. Before his cinema career Nuri Bilge Ceylan was a professional photographer. “Because I couldn’t find anything I wanted to do more. I studied electrical engineering, but after university I didn’t want to work as an engineer. I was a photographer too, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. So to decide – which is the most difficult thing in life – I started travelling. …I came across Polanski’s autobiography Roman. And it fired me up, this life that started out in the ghetto but changed a great deal, and I began to think: Maybe I could go into filmmaking. So I started reading books about the technical side of cinematography. And that’s how I decided to become a filmmaker. I came back to London, this time to study at film school. But it was very expensive, so I went back to Turkey and studied there for two years instead. But after that it took another ten years to get started – because starting out is the most difficult thing of all. Everything about it seems hard – human relationships, organisations…”(1)

He made his first film Cocoon in 1995 which was a short. After Cocoon he made four feature films. The Small Town (1995) was in the “Official Selection” section of the Berlinale. Clouds of May (1999) was chosen for the Berlinale competition. Distant (2002) and Climates (2006) were both at the Cannes Film Festival competition. Distant is the most powerful product of his cinema which was awarded with “grand prix” and best actor prizes in Cannes. The grand prix for Distant was a milestone for the international popularity and prestige of the Turkish cinema. Nuri Bilge Ceylan dedicated this award particularly to Yilmaz Güney who was able to take the same prize 20 years ago.

In fact this remembrance was nothing more but a kind of salutation of the preceding generations of Turkish filmmakers. Because Ceylan’s minimalist cinema is far from the great political films of Güney, which portrayed the distressing transformation of Turkish society in the 70s. Nevertheless he found a significant way to tell his own stories and the roots of his cinema leans elsewhere. “I am the sum of everything that has influenced me in my life; my observations, my own life, other films, everything. Tarkovsky is one of the filmmakers that have influenced me but even more than Tarkovsky I would cite Ozu; not only with his films but also with his decisions. As a filmmaker he became more and more sophisticated and in his final films he reduced things such as camera movements to the bare minimum. The subject matter also narrowed and this kind of attitude especially influenced me. Also, I think Ozu has a great amount of compassion for his characters and for people in general.”(2)

Ceylan does not like to work with a crowded crew and anxious to organise people on set which determined his style. He writes his own scripts, uses the camera himself, does the editing and even he played the main role in Climates. His films are made by a minimalist way. He does not like to make expensive attractions with the camera that helps to create a still atmosphere. Most of the actors, especially that play main roles, are amateurs. They are relatives, acquaintances or friends of the director.

The stories of Ceylan depict both the simple life of the countryman with his worries about the future and the life, and the loneliness and alienation of the middle class. Confrontation of those two main characters forms the tension. The middle class member either tries to exploit the country people (Clouds of May) or avoid them (Distant) if they are not useful for him.

Ceylan’s stories flow from the province through Istanbul. All four feature films are connected to each other only the focus changes. The Small Town portraits province of Turkey. The main character is young Saffet (Mehmet Emin Toprak) who tries to build himself a future but the opportunities in a small town are very limited. Although everyday routine is repeating itself continuously he likes to live in this town. He understood that he was somehow connected to that small place and the people of his town when he went to the military service. With his expectations, plans about the future, Saffet represents the progressive side of humanity while the members of his family are all done what they wanted to do in life and they have already started to live in the past. And of course the family is against the Saffet’s plans which identify a conflict between generations. Beside Saffet and elder representatives of the family the film discloses also the children of the family and the primary school of the town that are naïve, curious and at the exploring phase of the life.

In the Clouds of May a new character is included in the story, the director that lives in the big city and comes to make his film to the small town. Muzaffer (Muzaffer Özdemir) is very eager to shoot the film of his childhood and ignores everybody. He shoots his parents’ bedroom secretly, lies to Saffet who wants to leave the town for a better work in the big city and promises to help him in Istanbul. Saffet, as in The Small Town, works as an assistant to Muzaffer voluntarily and represents the countryman who wants more than the province offers to him but this time he is more direct and simple which indicates the difference between two films. The Small Town was the film about the childhood of Nuri Bilge Ceylan who certainly wanted to leave once upon a time like Saffet and because it is a film of the past it is composed of the mixture of the memories and the books –e.g. literature- Ceylan read. That’s why it is more literary. On the other hand Clouds of May is a film about present day dialogues are more direct and local. Saffet no more speaks like a character from Chekhov’s stories.

Muzaffer exploits everyone in the small town and forgets immediately his commitments after he finishes his film. Introduction of the Muzaffer as a middle class member from a big city connects the story to the third film, Distant in which we will know him better. What makes the distant so successful is beside the maturing cinematographic style of Ceylan the confrontation of two main characters in first two films the young man from the rural area and the middle class member of the metropolitan. This time their names are Yusuf and Mahmut respectively. In the search of better economic conditions and future Yusuf comes to Istanbul from the small town and as the many immigrants do in Turkey he stays with his relative Mahmut. Mahmut, who is a photographer and lost his desire against life facing a typical middle class situation, is very reluctant to staying with his visitor. The conflict is very clear: Saffet has desires, searches a job at a ship to go overseas, and follows a young girl in search of a relationship on the other hand Mahmut experience a kind of depression. He tries to avoid people to live in his nutshell without doing anything. Despite the endeavours of Yusuf, Mahmut refuses to build a relationship and Yusuf suddenly leaves the life of Mahmut as he came.

The Climates focuses on Muzaffer/Mahmut, the middle class character. This time he is called Isa who has problems with his girlfriend, Bahar and is living a middle age depression. In a summertime vacation we understand that their relationship come at point that they can’t bare to each other. They separate but the life does not offer much to Isa who goes through a pathetic relationship with an old friend and tries to turn back to Bahar. It is interesting to see Climates to witness the evolution of his cinematography and stories but I do not take Climates as powerful as the other films for two reasons. First when the other side eliminated from the story that is build on the loneliness and alienation of the middle class man lost its multi-tier, multi dimensional structure. Second this character has a lot of parts from the director’s life which probably keeps the director from putting a distance in-between. This kind of films, like the films of Antonioni or Buñuel, become interesting if the filmmaker stays away distant from the middle class where he can observe them clearly, and sarcastically and heavily criticise the little bourgeois conformism.

Ceylan likes to stroll around with his camera and follow his characters to unveil the relationship of the man and the nature. From his short to last film nature plays a crucial role for his cinematography. The viewer is invited to observe the nature by the camera and with the characters. Even in the first film Cocoon, trees, fields and river are shown. Especially the flow of the water is depicted in a very Tarkosvkian way. In the following films the director found his personal way of shooting the nature. The same elements appear again in The Small Town at the background of the story. While melancholy is the dominant feeling in the atmosphere of The Small Town and the short film, Clouds of May has the joy and the anxiety of the creativity at the same time. It is a film about making of The Small Town and in contrast to the first two films it was shot in colour and during the spring. Melancholy appears again in Distant while we walk through the streets of Istanbul covered with snow behind Yusuf, and share his worries about life and future. In the last movie, Climates, nature plays more important role at a visual level but does not directly affects the characters, instead it stays separated from the mood of the protagonists as we compare with the previous films. But as the name of the film indicates, Climates has images from different seasons of the year. Nuri Bilge Ceylan is not in the search of displaying the beauty of the nature or image on the contrary he tries to show inner dialectics (the endless cycles of the nature against the timeline of the shoots) and outer dialectics (the expectations, worries, feelings of the man against nature) by visual means.

One powerful aspect which contributes to the realism of the Ceylan’s cinema is his actors. He uses the advantage of the small crew to relax his actors as much as possible and make them to perform naturally. He started to use his family and acquaintances in his short film till the Climates. His father M. Emin Ceylan and mother Fatma Ceylan take parts in each film and show a very brilliant performance. In climates the very lively moment of the film was when the father appears with a woollen hat on his head. The young guy from the small town is played by Mehmet Emin Toprak who is a relative of director and was actually living in the Ceylan’s hometown in the first three features he developed his natural performance film by film. Unfortunately we lost him in a traffic accident which was like a tragic joke resembling his disappear at the end of Distant. As an amateur became one of the most important actors of modern Turkish cinema. The partner of Mehmet Emin Toprak in Clouds of May and Distant was Muzaffer Özdemir who played the mad person of the village in the Small Town is also not a professional actor. He is an architect and he made equally successful career with Toprak. That’s why they both took the best actor award in Cannes competition for their performance in Distant. Muzaffer Özdemir reflected both the malicious intention against the people of the town in Clouds of May and the cold, lonely and distant protagonist of the Distant, and he exposed very well the underestimating manner of the both characters against the others.

Ceylan became most important figure of the Turkish cinema both locally and internationally after Yilmaz Güney. With his evolving style of cinematography he invented a new kind of realism which is authentic and original but has references to the masters of the cinema also. His work give courage to the new coming directors indicating that cinema is not only money, with little you have the potential to do much. His focus smoothly moved from past to today, rural to urban life as the story of the Turkish people in last 50 years. Nuri Ceylan completed first period of his work and this new expansion to the urban life has its own stories that are waiting to be told.

Notes

(Published by Thessaloniki Film Festival / Balkan Survey in 2006)

1) Beyond the Clouds: An Interview with Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Geoff Andrew, Senses of Cinema (Australia), June 2004

2) A Quick Chat with Nuri Bilge Ceylan / Jason Wood, Kamera (UK), May 2004