Zeynep's days are spent working as a hotel housekeeper. Her nights are hellish due to her father's inappropriate behavior. The only person with whom she can build a relation ship is Mustafa, a young man who works at the same hotel and who is interested in Zeynep. Though she never responds to the interest of this young man, who is younger than she, she does not put him off either. Zeynep is trying to escape from the vicious circle in which she finds her self. In another part of the city, Selçuk, a sound technician, is struggling with the guilt he feels over the recent death of his wife. The suitcase that contains Selçuk's wife's clothes will change Zeynep's fate in a most unexpected manner.
About The Film
A breathless young woman unwinds a spool of golden thread, a kind of votive offering that requires her to wrap the thread through a holy place without the thread breaking. She is desperate and it is obvious that she is not actually trying to get a wish fulfilled; she is seeking redemption. In this she is like the faithful but deranged Domenico in Tarkovsky's Nostalghia, who asks the Russian writer Andrei to carry a lit candle through an Italian village's thermal baths. Zeynep is very young. She works as a housekeeper at a small hotel. Her face is beautiful yet drawn into a frown. She has a suitor, a shy and gentle bellboy. He adores her, but she openly rejects his affection. She is alienated, depressed and isolated. What is it that haunts her? In a scene that refers to Tsai Ming Liang's He liu/The River, we learn that she is being sexually abused by her father. This is why she visits the mausoleums of various saints, prays, and makes vows. She seeks redemption from her shame, her guilt, and her father. The film shows her prayers being answered, but with an original twist. There is a design of fate in the film's mystical atmosphere, a divine judgment that is reminiscent of Biblical times. A sound technician cheats on his wife by sleeping with their neighbor. The succeeding events lead him to give Zeynep a suitcase full of his wife's be longings, including cosmetics and underwear. The fallen angels were the sons of God who married daughters of men against His will. They taught women how to seduce men by putting on makeup and stripping naked and this caused all humans to sin. So God punished them with the Great Flood. The director Semih Kaplanoglu uses an oblique narrative style and nonlinear editing to give us a somber view. We are led by his use of mystical symbols and references. Al though the film is composed of long takes, contains no action at all, and its compositions are carefully balanced, he is able to keep the tension at a thriller like high level so that we feel Zeynep's fear and agony. We are disturbed; we cannot get away from this harsh reality. We are as desperate as Zeynep. Except for a few minutes of Grieg's Heart's Wounds",Kaplanoglu does not even use any music to give us respite. With his lyrical visual sensibility Kaplanoglu creates an obscure beauty of images. He places the camera in the middle of Zeynep's and her father's poor working class house to express the lack of joy, the coldness, the hostility. Zeynep does not enjoy life at all; her soul is tormented, but the father has a hunger for food and sex, and she must fulfill both appetites. They have almost no conversations. There is little dialogue in the film, not a single word more than need ed. Every thing depends on gestures and facial expressions that them selves tell more than language could do in this story. Young actress Tülin Özen is especially successful in her first screen appearance in depicting a sensual portrait. The ending also leaves us indecisive, not knowing what to think, how to judge. A crepuscular film indeed " is the night changing into day or the day changing into night? It is up to you " All we can say that it is masterful and touching"
Alin TASCIYAN, January 2005
About The Film
A breathless young woman unwinds a spool of golden thread, a kind of votive offering that requires her to wrap the thread through a holy place without the thread breaking. She is desperate and it is obvious that she is not actually trying to get a wish fulfilled; she is seeking redemption. In this she is like the faithful but deranged Domenico in Tarkovsky's Nostalghia, who asks the Russian writer Andrei to carry a lit candle through an Italian village's thermal baths. Zeynep is very young. She works as a housekeeper at a small hotel. Her face is beautiful yet drawn into a frown. She has a suitor, a shy and gentle bellboy. He adores her, but she openly rejects his affection. She is alienated, depressed and isolated. What is it that haunts her? In a scene that refers to Tsai Ming Liang's He liu/The River, we learn that she is being sexually abused by her father. This is why she visits the mausoleums of various saints, prays, and makes vows. She seeks redemption from her shame, her guilt, and her father. The film shows her prayers being answered, but with an original twist. There is a design of fate in the film's mystical atmosphere, a divine judgment that is reminiscent of Biblical times. A sound technician cheats on his wife by sleeping with their neighbor. The succeeding events lead him to give Zeynep a suitcase full of his wife's be longings, including cosmetics and underwear. The fallen angels were the sons of God who married daughters of men against His will. They taught women how to seduce men by putting on makeup and stripping naked and this caused all humans to sin. So God punished them with the Great Flood. The director Semih Kaplanoglu uses an oblique narrative style and nonlinear editing to give us a somber view. We are led by his use of mystical symbols and references. Al though the film is composed of long takes, contains no action at all, and its compositions are carefully balanced, he is able to keep the tension at a thriller like high level so that we feel Zeynep's fear and agony. We are disturbed; we cannot get away from this harsh reality. We are as desperate as Zeynep. Except for a few minutes of Grieg's Heart's Wounds",Kaplanoglu does not even use any music to give us respite. With his lyrical visual sensibility Kaplanoglu creates an obscure beauty of images. He places the camera in the middle of Zeynep's and her father's poor working class house to express the lack of joy, the coldness, the hostility. Zeynep does not enjoy life at all; her soul is tormented, but the father has a hunger for food and sex, and she must fulfill both appetites. They have almost no conversations. There is little dialogue in the film, not a single word more than need ed. Every thing depends on gestures and facial expressions that them selves tell more than language could do in this story. Young actress Tülin Özen is especially successful in her first screen appearance in depicting a sensual portrait. The ending also leaves us indecisive, not knowing what to think, how to judge. A crepuscular film indeed " is the night changing into day or the day changing into night? It is up to you " All we can say that it is masterful and touching"
Alin TASCIYAN, January 2005
