Despite being aware of the vast quantity of films that the country has made, I have somehow never had the chance to take a glimpse of Turkish cinema. Seeing this title chosen for the main part of the ICM Film Fest,I got set for my first taste of Turkish delight.
The plot:
Making preparations for the ship to reach port, captain Beybaba gets a call revealing that the shipping company has gone bust,and that the owner of the ship has run off. Wanting to get paid for the job,Beybaba is told that in order to get paid,the ship must not stop at port,and a handful of crew must remain on ship. Waving goodbye to most of the crew,Beybaba and the remaining crew buckle down to carry basic work out on the anchored ship. Finding their time waiting for their wage on the ship to grow from weeks to months,the crew start getting frustrated, and feelings in the ship become as poisonous as ivy.
View on the film:
Working on actual ships before going behind the camera, writer/director Tolga Karaçelik & cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki crank up an incredibly isolated atmosphere that follows crew members down cramp corridors that have a submarine-level depth of limitation,and the jagged hammering of metal on the soundtrack catching the eerie silence at sea. Leaving a bare bones crew on deck, Karaçelik initially uses wide-shots to give each of them a relative level of space over the first few weeks, which get gradually worn-down by stylishly closing in on the outbursts of tension,as the crew become wrapped in a supernatural chill.
Drilling into the frustrations of each crew member, the screenplay by Tolga Karaçelik casts the net to the thoughtful allegorical, with the chain of command being a battle between the corrupt elite, (who care so little for the crew,that they are prepared to leave them strained for months) and the worker caught in the daily grind of the machine,with the ghostly shadow of an "independent" Kurd always in the background. While exploring the allegorical, Karaçelik does not let any cracking tension to seep out into the water,as the crews times on the ship turns into that of a hostage situation,gripped by them waiting for the payment to arrive for their freedom, as ivy climbs up the walls of the ship.
The plot:
Making preparations for the ship to reach port, captain Beybaba gets a call revealing that the shipping company has gone bust,and that the owner of the ship has run off. Wanting to get paid for the job,Beybaba is told that in order to get paid,the ship must not stop at port,and a handful of crew must remain on ship. Waving goodbye to most of the crew,Beybaba and the remaining crew buckle down to carry basic work out on the anchored ship. Finding their time waiting for their wage on the ship to grow from weeks to months,the crew start getting frustrated, and feelings in the ship become as poisonous as ivy.
View on the film:
Working on actual ships before going behind the camera, writer/director Tolga Karaçelik & cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki crank up an incredibly isolated atmosphere that follows crew members down cramp corridors that have a submarine-level depth of limitation,and the jagged hammering of metal on the soundtrack catching the eerie silence at sea. Leaving a bare bones crew on deck, Karaçelik initially uses wide-shots to give each of them a relative level of space over the first few weeks, which get gradually worn-down by stylishly closing in on the outbursts of tension,as the crew become wrapped in a supernatural chill.
Drilling into the frustrations of each crew member, the screenplay by Tolga Karaçelik casts the net to the thoughtful allegorical, with the chain of command being a battle between the corrupt elite, (who care so little for the crew,that they are prepared to leave them strained for months) and the worker caught in the daily grind of the machine,with the ghostly shadow of an "independent" Kurd always in the background. While exploring the allegorical, Karaçelik does not let any cracking tension to seep out into the water,as the crews times on the ship turns into that of a hostage situation,gripped by them waiting for the payment to arrive for their freedom, as ivy climbs up the walls of the ship.