After falling in love with Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Uzak (2002) and Climates (2006) and in my excitement about his forthcoming Three Monkeys, I rented Artificial Eye's "Early Works" DVD.
This film, made in 1997, reveals the Ceylan sensibilities to already be a fully formed aesthetic style. The long, almost drowsy takes, the picking out of exquisite, minute details, the lingering on faces. Shot in black and white, it is essentially a documentary, a portrait of the small town of the title through the eyes of its children. There is a wonderful sequence at the beginning, in the depths of a snowy winter, as the children come to school for the day. One of their group arrives late, being spotted running down a hill at the far end of the town, runs into the room soaked from head to foot, a big grin on his face. Throughout the scene, his drying socks over the stove and a feather floating around the classroom provide a steady, slow rythmn:
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