fifo35

Kor utilizes the traditional love triangle that is often used in soap operas and melodramas, to twist it or dress it if you like with an existentialist cloak.The major themes are moral ambiguity, alienation and lack of communication in the context of an anonymous and indifferent Cityscape.Emine and Ziya are not sure about the terms of their relationship, their perspectives seem to change due to the moral rules of society.Values like family and subordination of female to male are voiced but not followed.Cemal himself shares the same moral ambiguity, although his pride is hurt and beats his wife, he don't ask for a divorce and continues to work in the workshop of the fornicator Ziya.Dialogues between the three protagonists are sparse and many times inconclusive high lightened sometimes by lengthy pauses of silence.Demirkubuz frames his characters in enclosed spaces with oblique camera angles to emphasize their entrapment that is physical and psychological.Although the first part of the film is mostly focused to Emine who is divided as a love object and as a loyal spouse, slowly the film shifts to Cemal's predicament.Again we don't witness some clear action, he becomes distant and self absorbed working overtimes being unable to express his emotions with words.Fate seems to resolve the conflict with the accident of Niyaz, but there is no resolution between the two spouses and their distance is unabridged.Someone can to think that Demirkubuz is distrustful of language as a vehicle of communication, his subjects are trapped and unable to change the course of events. History seems to be a force that crushes them with no explanation.This is a typical Existentialist view of the human condition and Demirkubuz apply it in his film vocabulary with static shots in tight spaces, frames that separate the characters, blurry Cityscapes etc.Demirkubuz seems to be a person with few ideas but he refined them through the course of time in his filmography and has developed a film language that is distinctively his own.That is not a small achievement and he deserves praise and respect, he brings a literary sensibility in his films that maybe are sometimes a bit pedantic but always thought provoking.

Good casting and acting, a story about domestic violence in which the director observes his characters but does not implicate them in any dramatic tension that lasts long enough to boost the narrative.Towards the end i expected a closure but i realized that it was a full circle. Some viewers like open ended films because they can fill with their imagination what follows next. I prefer a film that is a closed universe and makes a statement.The filmmaker was critical in the way he portrayed Croatian manhood in an indirect way, showing men to indulge in heavy drinking, fornication, violence etc, but refuses to take a clear position.It felt sometimes that i was watching a documentary about.It was not a bad film but i don't like obscurantists filmmakers, i like a firm a political statement about the affairs portrayed.

The french like to depict in most of their films. their favorite lifestyle which is usually middle to upper class. Sitting around a table drinking wine, eating food and pondering about politics and relationships. A bit later we will see some passionate sex and the story start to unfold, if the characters are on their 20's it has political overtones, if the characters are in their mid 30's it is about the coming of age, in this film is about the taboo of having an affair with a much younger partner and the predicament it accompanies such a decision.Nicely photographed, uplifting location near the sea can not to save this clichéd and bland film.It seems to me that a lot of french films suffer from trying to RE-invent love, which is fine but it becomes to be predictable and boring.