This is perhaps Çağan Irmak's best movie to date - an anti-romantic drama set in and around Beyoğlu that ostensibly analyzes the crisis of contemporary masculinities, but ends up showing how self- interested people actually are.
Alper (Cemal Hünal) is a successful chef with a penchant for collecting 80s pop LPs. In public he comes across as a generous, though perfectionist boss; in private he lives a life of solitude and self-interest, as he regularly haunts out local whores for a spot of S&M. Into his life comes Ada (Melis Birkan), a clothes-shop owner who initially rejects him but responds eventually to his persistent advances. The two of them fall in love but inevitably the affair ends in tears.
That is the entire plot of the movie; but nonetheless Irmak retains our interest by making telling thematic points. Alper's fondness for 80s music is part of his conquest strategy; chat the girl up, take her home, cook her a meal, put on some soft music and sexual success will inevitably follow. Unable - or is it unwilling - to acknowledge his true feelings, he inhabits a mental prison, despite his conquests. This is suggested through a regular use of shots showing him driving a car through the streets of İstanbul, with the camera outside focusing on his expression behind the wind-shield. On other occasions Irmak uses prison-images - for example, photographing Alper in close-up behind a metal bed-head, with iron bars obscuring his face.
The film's narrative unfolds in a series of two-shots and shot/reverse shots, which might suggest a concentration on character. However Irmak intersperses these shots with a series of jump-cuts - for example, when Alper prepares his dinner, or when Ada cooks breakfast one morning after a night of sexual passion. This technique suggests that the protagonists are somehow in a hurry; they want to get as quickly as possible through their daily rituals so that they can move on to something else. They cannot reflect on their emotions or their feelings towards one another.
The final sequence is particularly memorable. Ada and Alper re- encounter one another in Beyoğlu: by now Ada is married to someone else, while Alper is still isolated. As they exchange banalities with one another, we hear their true feelings expressed in voice-over. We learn from Ada that she has a memory of her time with Alper - a 45 rpm record that she took from his mother's house - that Alper knows nothing about. Here is the true source of nostalgia; not necessarily a mood, or a piece of music, but an object that recalls the past. Alper can, and never will, discover how this works, being too much concerned with himself alone.
Alper (Cemal Hünal) is a successful chef with a penchant for collecting 80s pop LPs. In public he comes across as a generous, though perfectionist boss; in private he lives a life of solitude and self-interest, as he regularly haunts out local whores for a spot of S&M. Into his life comes Ada (Melis Birkan), a clothes-shop owner who initially rejects him but responds eventually to his persistent advances. The two of them fall in love but inevitably the affair ends in tears.
That is the entire plot of the movie; but nonetheless Irmak retains our interest by making telling thematic points. Alper's fondness for 80s music is part of his conquest strategy; chat the girl up, take her home, cook her a meal, put on some soft music and sexual success will inevitably follow. Unable - or is it unwilling - to acknowledge his true feelings, he inhabits a mental prison, despite his conquests. This is suggested through a regular use of shots showing him driving a car through the streets of İstanbul, with the camera outside focusing on his expression behind the wind-shield. On other occasions Irmak uses prison-images - for example, photographing Alper in close-up behind a metal bed-head, with iron bars obscuring his face.
The film's narrative unfolds in a series of two-shots and shot/reverse shots, which might suggest a concentration on character. However Irmak intersperses these shots with a series of jump-cuts - for example, when Alper prepares his dinner, or when Ada cooks breakfast one morning after a night of sexual passion. This technique suggests that the protagonists are somehow in a hurry; they want to get as quickly as possible through their daily rituals so that they can move on to something else. They cannot reflect on their emotions or their feelings towards one another.
The final sequence is particularly memorable. Ada and Alper re- encounter one another in Beyoğlu: by now Ada is married to someone else, while Alper is still isolated. As they exchange banalities with one another, we hear their true feelings expressed in voice-over. We learn from Ada that she has a memory of her time with Alper - a 45 rpm record that she took from his mother's house - that Alper knows nothing about. Here is the true source of nostalgia; not necessarily a mood, or a piece of music, but an object that recalls the past. Alper can, and never will, discover how this works, being too much concerned with himself alone.