I really, really liked this movie. I caught it on Netflix (USA) in the category of Turkish comedies, but it's actually anything but Turkish or really a comedy, although parts of it are an absolute riot. It's a road movie about the Balkans in general and Macedonia in particular, and although not 'sweeping' or pretentious, is one of the best movies about the Balkans I've ever seen. It initially seems to feature a kind of nervous, awkward, almost child-like guy trying, with a notable lack of any social skills, trying to transport his long-lost, drunken, profane, and violently recalcitrant brother to their father's deathbed from Istanbul to Macedonia. The road part is diverting and often screamingly funny, involving a Gypsy wedding, outsized tires, and, in a sequence that almost put me out my chair, the 'Turkish' brother's inability to read Cyrillica road signs getting them lost in such an absurd way I just couldn't handle it at all. I had to stop the movie to catch my breath. The sense of absurdity that permeates the Balkans is on full display, here, and if it's not your thing, then it's not your thing: but it is my thing, and I loved it all. Funny, funny stuff. It's the second part of the movie that took me totally by surprise and that I found deeply moving. I was expecting a kind of more-or-less typical Turkish-style comedy overdone 'family reunion' (not that those kind of movies aren't funny), but instead got something much more meaningful. It was going somewhere I couldn't quite figure out, and then came the scene where the two newly-met brothers eat a meal in a local restaurant and learn about each other, and I was just... blown away. I'm not sure I've ever before seen anything quite like it. The 'awkward' brother is revealed as a deeply responsible, moral, decent, and terribly damaged guy trying to truly do the right thing. The sense of the 'Turkish' brother being a kind of missing piece of the family puzzle was extremely moving; his homecoming to a place he's never been before is so perfect and understated it's stuck with me in a way few movies do. Maybe I'm the only one who found the messy, troublesome, but genuinely heartfelt reunion of this family emotionally devastating; I hope not. This movie would make an interesting double bill with BEFORE THE RAIN, it's that good. A lot of it's comedic but when it gets powerful, it's really powerful. Also, the early scenes of what you might call a 'mosque-crawl' are well worth the price of admission; it's some funny material: "I'm prune-y from ablutions!"
