Capital Celluloid 2012 - Day 77: Saturday Mar 17

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Ceylan, 2011): Rio and ICA Cinemas et al, All week/Various times

This film is now on general release and I doubt I will see a better new movie this year. I caught it at the Turkish Film Festival last autumn and was most impressed.

This work from an outstanding Turkish director was also very well received at the London Film Festival and was No6 in January Sight & Sound magazine's poll of best films of 2011. The movie was given a five-star review by Time Out magazine:

'Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceyan is unlikely to attract heaving crowds to his sixth film, ‘Once Upon A Time in Anatolia’, but since when was the 51-year-old director of ‘Uzak’, ‘Climates’ and ‘Three Monkeys’ in it for the multiplex? Ceylan is a sly and daring screen artist of the highest order and should draw wild praise with this new film for challenging both himself and us, the audience, with this lengthy, rigorous and masterly portrait of a night and day in the life of a murder investigation on his country’s Anatolian steppes. It’s a mysterious and demanding work, and it marks a distinct progression in Ceylan’s career as he continues to gnaw at the boundaries of film storytelling with humour, grace, empathy and a dry, wry view of everyday life.' Dave Calhoun


Here is the trailer.

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