8/10
I've only seen one Nuri Bilge Ceylan movie, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, which I enjoyed very much. This one is very good too, about a man who loses his job and stays with his wealthier relative. The focus of the film is on both men's aimlessness. Yusuf, put out of a job by the economic climate, has an aimlessness that's a little more "real" - he has no education, no skills and no money. Mahmut, his relative, has more money and some skills (he's a photographer) but is equally unmotivated - in the career he hates, with his ex-wife, and with his lover.
Their relationship comes to a "head" (as much as anything can come to a head in this movie) in a particularly brilliant sequence. Mahmut can't find a missing watch. Yusuf claims he hasn't seen it. Mahmut finds the watch, but doesn't tell Yusuf - in fact, he makes it apparent that he's gone through Yusuf's stuff "looking" for it. Mahmut is so emotionless he can't even bring himself to accuse Yusuf to his face of the theft he knows Yusuf didn't commit. So he dishevels Yusuf's bag hoping to draw him into a confrontation. Yusuf instead departs without saying a word to Mahmut, apparently unperturbed.
What the movie shows is two men more or less crushed to nothingness by factors both external and internal. It ends on an ambiguous note but there's no mistaking the sadness that runs through the whole movie and both its main characters.
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