Winter Sleep : Nuri Bilge Ceylan

 

It’s better to express the last impression first. I am stunned thinking about two strange sides of “Winter Sleep”, 2014 [Kis Uykusu] by Turkish celebrated film director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. One is its narrative form. I was in a complete immersion in reading Bengali author Rabindranath’s novels last month, all of them are dialogue driven structures which have made me a bit drained but I succeeded in completing my journey of reading Rabindranath. Years ago, I started to watch this Winter Sleep because that time I was keenly interested in Turkish arts and literature because of Orhan Pamuk. But I could not sustain exceeding 40 minutes over as its slow pace and overloaded conversations among characters. Today when I started watching it in the morning, I could not leave it. Maybe Rabindranath’s narrative techniques have put a deep impression on me about which I am not aware of. Though many say he got the style from Chekhov and Dostoyevsky, for me it’s Rabindranath.

 

The second aspect is closely related with the first one. When you put overloaded literary dialogues, your characters have less space to move physically except lips, eyes, and a bit of a hand. They remain in stillness. Last night I saw Kaouther Ben Hania’s Beauty and the Dogs where she used scene division theatrically. The characters have less space opportunity to move physically as they are taken one unbroken shot for each scene. When I stared closely at the screen frames and scene compositions, I was one step more surprised to notice that they are more like photographs with incomplete motions. The precision of cinematic compositions and color temperature are overwhelming.

 

I didn’t think that a film could also be made and appear to me as a great novel written in or a philosophical treatise that can contemplate on human nature with such grace and sublimity. Every character in the movie is fully developed and shows their own deepest and strongest feelings, thoughts and emotions. What has shunned me is thinking about the contradictory nature of humankind. Every character showed one’s moral position positively in one topic, but shockingly appeared with one’s opposite attitude in a single scene over charity. That’s why one cannot define a good person or bad? The anticipating conversations between Aydin and Nihal where Nihal presents a list of opposing actions resulting from the same virtue, whereas Aydin in one scene scolds Nihal as bigotry but praises him as intelligent in the following scene. Therefore, it’s appropriate to take human nature. Being judgmental only brings discomfort to mind.

Two things seem so strange to be accepted but cathartic to ease the mind. The one when Ismail throws Nihal’s money into fire instead of gratitude to Nihal’s kindness. I was numb in silence for a while as Nihal was bursting into cries and tears. Ismail’s moral rage is undeniable that I may not be able to take someone for granted that any one will be flown with my compassion. The other is when Aydin released his Anatolian horse into the wilderness and when he came back to Hotel Othello and stared at each other and delivered a long monologue over voice and screened Nihal facial expression so poetically.

 

I didn't come across the hills that turn into houses and hotels before; they look so natural and sublime for viewing. The barren steppe and harsh hills represent the texture and feeling of discrimination of class systems shown onwards in the film. Every wide angle shot especially with zooming ones are stunning and surprising to me. The camera movements are executed with dexterity and artistry.

 

Winter Sleep [2014]

[Kis Uykusu]

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Turkish, Turkey

PS: I watched "Winter Sleep" to have a taste of the representative film from each nominated director of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.