L'amour, La magie etc.

It is a movie that should be appreciated even for its courage. We are in the year 2021, but there are issues that we hesitate to talk about or see. What I'm talking about is not conservatism. We pretend to be looking, we pretend we know, we pretend to support. We need such stories to normalize our normal.

The Turkish film ASK BÜYÜ VS (2019) was shown in the U. S. with the translated title Love, Spells and All That. (I think the title trivializes the movie. The film is serious, not whimsical.) The writer and director was Ümit Ünal.

Twenty years after separating from the one true lesbian love of her life, Ece Dizdar arrives back on a small Turkish island. She finds her former lover, played by Selen Uçer. Ece has moved on. She's now highly educated and sophisticated. Selen hasn't moved on--she lives a marginal existence with a male partner.

Twenty years earlier, Selen bought a love potion that she hoped would bring Ece back. Now that Ece is, indeed, back, Selen doesn't want to leave the island to begin a new life. That's where the love potion part of the plot arises--the potion has to be undone.

This was a beautiful movie about love lost and--possibly--regained after 20 years. It was shown virtually by Rochester's great ImageOut LGBT Film Festival.

The movie would work better on the large screen--the setting is beautiful. However, it worked well enough on the small screen for me to recommend it. The film has an anemic IMDb rating of 6.8. I thought it was much better than that and rated it 9.

The script felt more like a cross-section that quickly told something than a stunning life story. There were no stereotypes in the film, which was an aspect I liked. The beauty of the islands was captured from every angle. I felt like I saw down there or something. It wasn't bad.

Twenty years ago, Eren and Reyhan were teenage lesbian lovers. Found out by Eren's rich and powerful parents, she was sent away. Now, with all parents dead, Eren has returned to the hilly island off Turkey to find Reyhan, and try to rekindle the old spark. Reyhan is still upset by Eren's abandonment, Eren's father persecuting her family, and believes Eren's return is only the result of a spell Reyhan caused to be cast on Eren years ago. Eventually, they have to find a way to undo that spell.

Because it is mostly a 2-person story, it threatens to feel a bit slow, as they walk up one hill after another, though I understand that it takes time for the couple to potentially reunite. There are loose ends, like where Reyhan (and the man she lives with) works, if at all, or the significance of what seem to be some random characters, except to pad out some time. And I didn't like the tenuous-thread search for someone to deal with the spell.

What a brilliant film from Turkey. Beautifully shot, very well enacted, the film stands out as much for its narrative as its aesthetics. The cats, the bougainvillea, the quiet island, the wind gently swaying the branches - everything is so poetic and will stay in my mind forever.