Winter Sleep/Kış Uykusu (2014) - Ceylan's complex, novelistic drama masterpiece

♥♥♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Turkish Movie of the Year

 

An evocative, melancholic poster for Nuri Bilge Cylan's Winter Sleep

 

Aydin is an aging hotel and land owner and a hobby writer, Aydin, who collides with a family of down-on-their-luck tenants, meanwhile his sister and wife are waging a verbal war on him during a Turkish winter.

 

Winter Sleep is a film that is more shaped as a good novel would be than films usually are. SPOILER Around an hour passes concerning a broken car window; the next more or less with the carping sister; and the last, more or less, is spent on the disdainful wife. It is therefore not a movie for everyone, because it may be demanding for some in terms of our capacity for empathy, patience as well as intellectually. But Winter Sleep has a winter's slow pace but is never dull.

The film portrays humans with superior skill, - among other things, it includes a 15 minutes-long row between the brother and sister, which has to pass over in cinema history as one of the finest sibling squabbles ever, as they lash deeper and deeper stings against the other with the awful determination of petty family insight.

There is a lot at stake here. The film tackles meaty topics such as evil, charity and the marriage institution, - and it has some fabulous, archetypal characters. But the main theme, I think, is an unusual one for cinema, namely resignation. Resignation to the facts of life and its imperfect constructs. Resignation to flaws and defeat. The tale is seen from the viewpoint of Aydin (Haluk Bilginer (Buffalo Soldiers (2001))), a matured, melancholicly disposed man, who has passed his prime and knows it, but who still has a high regard for himself, his past years on the stage and his literary talents, especially as they pertain to skewering his local surroundings - in the local newspaper.

Winter Sleep is written by great Turkish co-writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia/Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da (2011)) and his wife Ebru Ceylan (Three Monkeys/Üç Maymun (2008)). It is based on Anton Chekhov's (The Seagull/Chayka (1896)) short story The Wife and one subplot of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's (The Idiot/Idiot (1868-9)) The Brothers Karamazov/Brat'ya Karamazovy (1879-80). 

 

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Watch an official trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: In excess of 4.1 mil. $

= Uncertainty (likely even Steven)

[Winter Sleep premiered May 16 (Cannes) and runs 196 minutes. Filming took place with the Sony F65 camera on location in Anatolia for 2 winter months, followed by four weeks in an Istanbul studio. The film was awarded 450k € from Eurimages as a French-German-Turkish co-production. The film won the Palm d'Or in Cannes as well as the FIPRESCI (critics') prize. It seems to have grossed 165k $ in North America (4 % of the total gross) . It made 1.6 mil. $ (39 % in its native Turkey, where it was reportedly Ceylan's biggest hit to date. Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 1 mil. $ (24.4 %) and Italy with 290k $ (7.1 %). It might have broken even but it is unlikely that it has turned a profit. It was Turkey's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar but wasn't nominated. It has reportedly made an additional 88k $ on video sales. Winter Sleep is certified fresh at 88 % with an 8.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Winter Sleep?