Nuri Bilge Ceylan has earned huge amounts of goodwill as he has made some of the most memorable and beautiful films we’ve seen. It took a while for me to get around to his latest one as they’re always so long but I was expecting good things from it. Unfortunately while it has some gorgeous cinematography and is crammed full of the kind of wordy dialogue the director likes, I’m not quite sure he knows what he’s doing here. The whole time I thought the film was working towards a condemnation against the extremely petty main character but then the monologue at the end appears to be sympathetic towards him. I must conclude that either the film is a failure and there is some mixed messaging going on here or else the director has some strange views.
Samet is a teacher who deeply resents being sent to teach in a remote school in the far east of Turkey. After his holiday in his native Istanbul, he dejectedly trudges through the snow to return to work, living with his fellow teacher and friend Kenan in assigned quarters. As an art teacher, he blatantly favors particular students, especially Sevim, a pretty and bright girl and gifts her a makeup compact. However other teachers conducting a surprise search of the students’ belongings find and confiscate the compact, along with a love letter. Samet later argues with the other teachers and retrieves the letter but refuses to return it to Sevim, causing her to be upset with him. She and another girl accuse both him and Kenan of being inappropriately close with them. They are warned but no further action is taken and after this Samet enacts petty acts of revenge against Sevim. Meanwhile Samet meets Nuray a fellow teacher in town, who has lost a leg from a terrorist bomb. Samet seemingly has no interest in pursuing a serious relationship with her and so introduces her to Kenan. However when the two grow close as Kenan teaches her how to drive, he sets out to sabotage their relationship.
It’s hard to imagine a more odious and petty little person as a protagonist. What makes him especially detestable is that he sees himself as a sensitive and cultured man who strides above the masses, forced by circumstances to serve in a backwater far from the Istanbul where he truly belongs. The other characters then serve as counterpoints. Nuray is in some ways his polar opposite, being idealistic and humanistic. Due to her disability, she could choose to be sent to Istanbul yet remains here to be close to her family and because someone has to teach the children here. Kenan meanwhile seems down to earth and old-fashioned. He is interested in marrying Nuray but quietly backs down without a fight when Samet comes between them. A more ordinary director would have guided the film as a denunciation against the type of person Samet is. Yet Ceylan frustratingly refuses to give us an easy answer. There’s no question that Samet truly is smart and seems to be a decent photographer as he travels across the land and takes portraits of the people he meets. In a spirited debate against Nuray about political activism, he at least holds his own as he defends his own individualist and selfish views. Then Nuray somewhat sheepishly sleeps with him anyway despite not really liking him and disagreeing with his views.
Samet worst moral failing however is his creepy obsession with Sevim. To his credit, he doesn’t seem to be actually grooming her sexually or romantically. But he does intervene in her life and project his own ambitions and mindset onto her in an entirely inappropriate manner. When he challenges her as an intellectual peer, of course she can’t reciprocate because she’s just a child so it’s cringey of him to even ask. It’s really impressive that the director is able to engineer such rich human interactions. However in embracing his characteristic ambiguity about what he trying to say in this film, he also comes close to personally endorsing Samet’s worldview. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the final monologue which has Samet place himself on a higher moral and metaphysical plane than everyone else and bemoan how lonely he is there. It’s a ridiculously pompous declaration illustrated by him physically climbing to a higher point than the other characters. Yet it’s difficult to interpret the film as condemning him due to the placement of the monologue.
Maybe the director is just being very sarcastic and subtle in his messaging. Someone with a closer connection to Turkish culture would probably interpret this better. I found a very insightful Reddit post that delved into the meaning of the names of the main characters which suggests that Ceylan is being very deliberate in how he created the personas for each of them. Then there’s the wonderful irony of Samet cursing the spiritual poverty of the backwater part of the country he has been posted to while tramping about the spectacular ruins of the Karakuş Tumulus. Still these impediments to my understanding can’t help but reduce my appreciation for this film and so I find that I like it a lot less than his other works.