Nuri Bilge Ceylan Research Articles

A lonely and beautiful country: reflecting upon the state of oblivion in Turkey through Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys

Through an in‐depth analysis of internationally acclaimed Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's 2008 film Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun), this article discusses the politics of Ceylan's cinema against the backdrop of the current memory debate in Turkey. Turkey has a troubling relationship with its past. The process of the foundation and the early development of the Turkish nation‐state included traumatic events during which ethnic and religious minorities were massacred, deported, or encouraged to migrate. There have also been several violent incidents in Turkey's subsequent history that include massacres, mass killings, political assassinations, as well as military coups. It is a widely held opinion that social memory in Turkey is based on forgetting and denial, that is, Turkish society deals with the troubling events in its past by turning a blind eye to them. Drawing upon the question of how it may be possible to make the traces of forgetting and silence observable, this paper argues that Ceylan's film, despite its seemingly apolitical story, has indeed profound political connotations since its narrative and visual organization serve to display the prevailing mood of silence, oblivion and complicity in Turkey.

An Examination on Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Movie “Uzak: The Story of Winner Losers”

This study attempts to bring a sociological perspective on the tense relationship between urban and rural life, via Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s movie “Uzak”. The director subtly examines the relationship, typical of capitalist-era modernisation, between an urban resident who has constructed “a sheltered loneliness”, and an unexpected rural guest who becomes involved therein. Via strong characterisation, the work opens a debate on the popular image of rural-urban opposition. Rural life, frustrated and then ignored by modern way of thinking, is nonetheless a reality saturated with capitalism. “Uzak”, with unique, cliche-free language, successfully reflects this.

New Turkish cinema: belonging, identity and memory

Providing a sharp and engaging analysis of the films by internationally acclaimed new wave Turkish directors like Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Zeki Demirkubuz, Yeim Ustaolu, Dervi Zaim, Serdar Akar, and Yilmaz Erdogan, this is the first full examination of contemporary Turkish cinema to be published in English.Asuman Suner explores the emergence of the new wave Turkish cinema against the backdrop of the drastic transformation of Turkey since the 1990s. Suner argues that this new cinema, including both commercial and independent productions, persistently returns to the themes of belonging, identity and memory; it is how films address these themes that constitutes a dividing line, with big budget popular films tending to settle contradictions into comforting resolutions, while independent movies demonstrate their paradoxical nature. At the same time, she addresses the divergences between popular and 'art' cinema that destabilise the very distinction between these categories.

New Turkish Cinema: Belonging, Identity and Memory * Cinema and Politics: Turkish Cinema and the New Europe * Cinema at the Periphery

Since the mid 1990s there has been a renaissance in Turkish cinema in terms of both film production and attendance. The old-style picture houses have been superseded by multiplexes offering a variety of attractions, including Hollywood blockbusters as well as locally produced hits. Popular films such as Eşkiya/The Bandit (Yavuz Turgul, 1996), Vizontele (Yilmaz Erdoğan and Ömer Faruk Sorak, 2001), G. O. R. A. (Ömer Faruk Sorak, 2002), and the anti-American polemic Kurtlar Vadısı: Irak/Valley of the Wolves: Iraq (Serdar Akar and Sadullah Sentürk, 2006) have attracted audiences in record numbers. At the same time several directors, including Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Zeki Demirkubuz and Derviş Zaim, have made names for themselves with a series of low-budget independent films, both domestically and abroad. Ceylan's İklimler/Climates (2006), for example, received the Fipresci prize in competition at the Cannes Film Festival of 2007. Both Asuman Suner's New...

Film Reviews

Three Monkeys/ maymun (2008) Turkey Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan Screenplay Ebru Ceylan, Ercan Kesal, Nuri Bilge Ceylan Producer Zeynep zbatur Director of Photography Gkhan Tiryaki Editor Ayhan Ergrsel, Bora Gksingl, Nuri Bilge Ceylan Art Director Ebru Ceylan With Yavuz Bingl (Eyp), Hatice Aslan (Hacer), Ahmet Rifat Sungar (Ismail), Ercan Kesal (Servet), Cafer Kse (Bayram), Grkan Aydin (The Child) Runtime 109 minutes

Istanbul 2008

27th ISTANBUL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Ask festival director Azize Tan why she was using every opportunity available to celebrate the current revival of Turkish cinema at the 27th Istanbul International Film Festival (5-20 April 2008), and she would tick off any number of reasons. Last year, for instance, Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, served on the international jury at Cannes. Further, the Palm for Best Screenplay was awarded to Turkey-born, Germany-based Fatih Akin's Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven), a German-Turkish co-production. Also, before this year's IIFF even began, the city was alive with the rumour that Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Uç maymun (Three Monkeys) was likely headed for the Cannes competition - as, indeed, it was. Finally, at the close of the Istanbul festival, the international jury headed by German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus awarded the Golden Tulip to Semih Kaplanolu's Yumurta (Egg), a Turkish-Greek...

Distant

This article attempts to interpret Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s award‐winning film Distant [Uzak] (2002) through a discussion of social and cultural theory. Distant subtly chronicles the nature of the “distance” between two as individuals, between them and the other people in their lives, between them and strangers in their neighborhood, and between them and their country. They are essentially lost souls with little hope of resolving their problems and washing away their bitterness. To offer a systematic account of the film, the article especially elaborates on the concepts of time‐image, isolated modern life and urban solitude, and the direct link between dirt and strangeness.