Beyond the Hill

One of those Turkish not so easily and pace running movies. VERY slow and boring cinematography.

I get surprised to find Beyond the Hill being treated as master class in film making cause it's very bad in directing and acting.

Have had so many similar story telling and director of photography waiting so much from its audience, sound editing is outrage and beyond new era film making.

Being living abroad and expecting what my country can make really sucks. Don't give me award winning excuse cause really not sure how they get prizes but can only convince 7-8 theaters for screening. There must be something wrong somewhere! I hate to say it's hard breaking to watch a film long enough where it should have been only 15 Min's...

I was very fortunate that EYE Film Museum Amsterdam ran this movie during the Turkish Beat festival. Must say that I really really loved this movie. It is the sort of movie keeps you thinking within a couple days after you watch it. And I'm not talking gets you thinking out of not understanding the story but more like wanting to really know what is really "behind the hill".

The story take place in a remote village in East of Turkey where a family with complicated internal relationships constantly struggle with the villagers on the other side of the hill. You never see them but you only see their actions- or the actions that are attributed to them. From the start to the end, it's all wrapped with tensions of the unknown and how the villagers find ways to deal with them.

I do want to write so much more but I hate the spoiler reviews so I will leave it at this. For all I know, I still am not sure what was behind the hill.

Gorkem

I was lucky enough to catch this at this years International Berlin Festival. The director was realistic about the eventual outcome of the movie I suppose, but still the fact he made this movie is something that should be celebrated. It's a really remarkable movie, with standout performances by the cast. And while it does revolve around violence, none is actually really shown.

Which makes the whole thing even more intriguing and more arresting at the same time. Human interactions are the main course, with our instincts, drives and fears being dissected very slowly and for all to see. You can see things coming, but it seems to be impossible to stop them. It's in our nature. While this is a pessimistic view of things (or at least my interpretation of it), this is an amazing movie, that I cannot recommend highly enough!

Emin Alper's Beyond the Hill is a master class in film making and in particular the use of sound in movies. With a soundtrack composed of only natural sounds found in nature and without any music (except at the very last scene) Alper manages to build unbearable tension.

A small landowner has punished some people living beyond a hill whose goats were grazing in his land by taking one of their goats and killing it to make a feast for his son and grand sons who are visiting him. Will those people now take revenge and what form would that be? From the moment the landowner's family arrive Alper builds up the tension expertly and manages to maintain this tension throughout the film.

In the Q&A after the screening Alper confirmed that his film is a political allegory about Turkey and its neighbors. In parts it is reminiscent of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and clearly Emin Alper is a name to watch out for.

As the debut feature of Emin Alper's dense, dominant, and politically charged cinema, Beyond the Hill is a carefully crafted film that is well-directed for a first effort, even if it bears a few production shortcomings. Sharing thematic parallels with the director's later works (excluding A Tale of Three Sisters), the film portrays how the order of a farmer and his family is disturbed by an unseen "other." The enemy, in truth, does not reside within their home, but is a paranoid specter they imagine waiting "beyond the hill."

The second act feels a little rushed; had the film been given more time to breathe and the finale handled with greater restraint, its cohesion might have been even stronger. The uneasy atmosphere of the steppe and the occasional use of horror elements add a distinctive flavor to the film.

With Beyond the Hill, Alper makes a confident debut that lays the groundwork for both his recurring themes and his cinematic language, a clear sign of the tone his later films would carry.