User Reviews

This is a strange little movie. It's as if someone really, really wanted to make a gay movie but (1) didn't know anything about being gay, and (2) didn't know anything about making a movie.

What's surprising is that it isn't in any way offensive. In fact, it's sort of touching, that someone cared enough to make a movie for us even though he didn't know how, sort of like a toddler making a homemade valentine for his parents: it's so sweet that only a jerk could be offended by its naive amateurishness.

It's not even a particularly boring movie, although the last six of its 69 minutes are the end credits, scrolling so slowly you can hardly tell they're moving, while the most somniferous music I've ever heard drones along with them.

There are also many shots of a tall, ugly, perforated metal sculpture standing in the middle of a river, and many short clips of cast members doing things like swimming, or walking, and then fade to black. Only the director knows what those clips are supposed to mean.

The movie seems to have been made with a digital camera on auto-focus and auto-exposure, which I've never seen in a professionally released movie before. The acting and direction are clumsy at best, and there's no dialog to speak of.

Cibrâil is not a good movie by any conventional standards, but I loved it. I'm going to watch it again, now that I know what to expect of it.

So I can recommend it only to someone who is willing and able to receive it as a well-meant gift from a loving child, who can't yet draw a picture of you as you look to yourself, but very touchingly draws the love he sees in you.

As other reviewers have remarked, not a lot happens in this film - a police officer Cibrail (Sinan Hancılı) tries to come to terms with his sexuality once Marco (Engin Sert) visits the apartment that Cibrail shares with Christine (Martina Hesse). Nonetheless Tor Iben's seventy-minute drama is far subtler in structure than might be first assumed. Set in the less recognizable areas of Berlin - apart from the Tiergarten and Alexanderplatz - the film explores the psychology of the outsider. As a Turkish tourist resident in Rome, Marco tries to come to terms with Berlin by cruising in bars, looking for any available pick-ups. They provide him with momentary satisfaction, but do not help him to overcome loneliness. Iben's film is full of shots of him trudging the Berlin streets by day and by night, as if looking for something (or someone) but failing to find it. Cibrail seems to have an ordered life with Christine, but finds a particular lack of satisfaction with her; the one sex scene we see involving the two of them is particularly mechanical in tone. It is only when he espies two men making love in a park that his true sexuality comes to the surface. From then on, he makes desperate efforts to lose his outsider status by finding love, even if it means a furtive nighttime grope with Marco while Christine sleeps in the next room. In the end it seems that Cibrail is doomed to a life of perpetual isolation as Marco leaves for Rome and Christine moves out; but the film has an unexpectedly happy, if admittedly transient ending.

Iben's cinematic style is quaintly old-fashioned; there are several zooms in to the characters' faces (and torsos) that are reminiscent of Turkish Yeşilçam films of the Sixties and Seventies. In thematic terms, however, this technique works admirably, as it focuses our attention on the protagonists' expressions as they try to come to terms with their fundamental loneliness. Perhaps it is not only the protagonists that experience this feeling; from the loving close-ups of Hancılı's naked torso at the beginning to the slow tracking shots up and down the lovers' bodies at the end, there is a clear sense that the director longs to participate (even if only vicariously through the camera) in the male experience of love.

A slow, absorbing film that not only shows one man's process of self-discovery, but simultaneously embodies the director's own frustrations as he seems unable to be involved in that process. He can only photograph it.

The film opens with our hero Cibrâil going out for a run, training for a marathon. Christine, played by Martina Hesse, asks Cibrâil (Sinan Hancili) if he can pick up her cousin Stefan (Peter Beck), who is coming for a visit. The script is quite sparse, and many of the scenes take place outside in Berlin. Cibrâil sees their houseguest having an adventure in the park, and is intrigued... and there is tension for the next couple of days. You'll have to watch the film to see how things are resolved, but pay attention, because its only 70 minutes long. The director, Tor Iben keeps putting a sculpture in our view - a large statue of two men. And later, at a cookout, we seem to focus on those sausages on the grill for an extra long time... or maybe it was just my imagination. Calling doctor freud. In seventy minutes, there isn't much time for character development, and Iben packs a lot into that time. It's a fun watch. I was worried for a bit that this might turn into a typical stereotype of a gay themed film of the 70s or 80s, but I was pleasantly surprised. Hope to see more like this one from Iben and from TLA. This was the first full length film for Hancili and Hesse, and it looks like Beck had done mostly TV and short films until now.

This film tells the story of a policeman who lives with his girlfriend i Berlin. One day, the girlfriend's cousin from Rome comes to stay. The policeman unexpectedly finds the cousin attractive, unravelling secret desires that he never knew existed.

"The Visitor" is unbelievably horrible. It is clearly made by novices who do not know how to make a film. I believe that I should not criticize if I cannot do a better job, but on this occasion, I honestly believe that I can make a better film.

First of all, it is clearly shot on a hand-held compact digital camera, because you can clearly see from the way the zoom works. The zoom starts and stops abruptly, which is really annoying. They could have at least used a digital SLR, that would already have solved this problem. Unfortunately, the multitude of other problems could not be solved as easily. The story is boring, the storytelling is excruciating, composition of scenes is poor and lighting is horrible. To make matters worse, the resolution is horrible. I watched the DVD and it appears grainy on my TV! The story is really bad. A policeman who is not shown to have homosexual inclinations beforehand, suddenly develops a crush for the cousin? How believable is that? That is not the main problem either. The really big problem is the horrendous story telling. Subplots are introduced but are dropped for no reason, without closure, many times in the film. For example, the policeman asks the cousin what the plan is for the evening, and the cousin answers he wants to go to a club. Then there are no scenes of them going to the club. Another example is the policeman makes eye contact with someone in a bar, something should happen next but the story suddenly shifts to another subplot entirely. It feels like the filmmakers ran out of time and money to shoot pivotal scenes, so there are only certain scenes shown but they are not logically or consequentially connected to each other. That is the main problem of the film, scenes do not drive the story and do not pave way for the next scene.

Towards the end of the film, the screen goes black quite a few times between subplots. My friends and I were truly hoping the film to end, but it just won't end. Even though the film is only about an hour long, it feels like eternity. I truly recommend you to stay away from this train wreck. It is beyond horrid.