Wolken stehen am Himmel

Every year many art-house movie projects in Turkey are in search of sponsors. Often the political motivations determine where the sponsor should invest. This is one such example. It has been sponsored by EU just because it criticizes the the Turkish history.

This could be OK, unless you know how badly it has been executed and at the cost of which other projects, then you feel bad. In the same year this movie got the EU money, there were a couple of scenarios by some independent young directors. I found one especially about the life in a Eastern Turkey village, event evolving around the theme of struggle of local Kurdish people with the local feudal system was a star. It has been wasted because of Ustaoglu's "supply for the market demand" approach (here the market is EU, as opposed to viewers, unfortunately).

The only good thing about this movie are some shot on misty mountains. Otherwise it is a dry, uncreative execution of "voice of the master" concept.

Exquisitely shot and carefully crafted in terms of the handling of its subject matter, Waiting for Clouds is one of the most significant features that came out from Turkish cinema in the recent years. The film tells the story of a woman's going back to her roots through loss and memory. Her reflective process appears as an urge to rediscover herself in the little town of mountainous Black Sea where she has settled for a long time. Ustaoglu's character stands out with the nuanced and absorbed performance of Ruchan Caliskur. The subtle balance between the elaborate discussion of identity in Turkish historical context is accompanied by beautiful cinematography and construction of geography/space. The director, Yesim Ustaoglu, has apparently matured her directorial style in relation to her previous two feature films, and stands out to be the foremost significant woman filmmaker in contemporary Turkish cinema.

Whatever the intentions may be, it's executed in a terrible boring way. You don't feel for the characters at all, because you don't get the why's & how's. Bad directing and bad acting aswell.

Yesim Ustaoglu manages to tell a sad story of past history where people are forced to loose their identities. Eleni which has lived her whole life with the name of Ayse, with an older lady who took care of her when she is left behind during a mass immigration, gets back in touch with her real identity, her real language. Her silence, cries out her loss of identity. The story is beautifully told through the eyes of a child, with beautiful pictures and landscape. The misty mountains accompany the misty pictures of the past. Yesim Ustaoglu is a very strong director who chooses good actors and gets good results. She deserves better recognition, which, I believe, will come through the years.

This is a great film in which the depicted events need a lot of patience to be followed,understood and put in mind.Although the film has some historical background,a person with true human heart can easily follow this film contrary to the belief that some elements about history must be read before watching a film with historical context.Yesim Ustaoglu has shot her film through the eyes of a small boy who is growing in a Turkey under conflict.There are some wise old women too around him who also have a great screen presence.The humor of the film is very limited and comes in the form of the observations made by the young boy.The photography by the renowned Polish cinematographer Jacek Petrycki is stupendous and every effort has been made by him to capture the beauty of the rural landscape. Waiting for the clouds is also a film about the search for identity as history forces people to question what they have been,why they are, what are going to be ? All in all, a very good slow moving film worthy of being appreciated with family members.