Ahlat ağaci

Sinan, a young man recently graduated from a university in Çanakkale, jobless and with a passionate wish to publish a personal essay on everyday subjects seen from a philosophical perspective, is an admirer of Cioran and Nietzsche and he is going back to his hometown. His father, a respected school teacher – and also a gambler – is there, as well as his selfless mother, his scornful little sister, his grandparents, his old friends, and an ex-girlfriend who is just about to get married. The dramatic tension has to do with the unarticulated horror felt by the son in regards to repeating his father’s life, which is the starting point for a philosophical inquiry into the will to exist. Words have a clear weight in this film, which is not to say that Ceylan dismisses composition in each of his shots. The scene showing Sinan’s reunion with his beloved one is exemplary in formal terms – the camera movements, the framings, and the notable sense of rhythm throughout the scene. This director’s usual skill in terms of his use of ellipsis and mise en abyme – which usually introduce an oneiric dimension in the tale – are as present as ever. And, as in all of Ceylan’s films, his lucid pessimism about the world is averted by the beauty of nature. (Roger Koza)