by Grant Shade
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Tülin Özen, Ogulcan Arman Uslu, Vedat Erincin
Intro:
… a top-notch humanistic drama.
This is a Turkish legal drama that leaves a lot unsaid, unexplained, with plenty of scope for interpretation. Tülin Özen plays Canan, a lawyer tasked with defending a guy on a murder charge, Musa (Ogulcan Arman Uslu). At the same time, she is dealing with the slow demise of her elderly mother, hospitalised in a coma.
The minutiae of life in the small Turkish town is fascinating. There’s one simple, prosaic scene where Canan stops by a chemist to buy a razor so Musa can shave for the hearing. The shopkeeper asks what kind, she tells him she doesn’t know, he selects one for her, then explains that she can’t use her debit card for that amount, so she buys some pretzel sticks. Completely normal, yet for some reason, it’s a scene that stays with you. Maybe it’s the unusualness of seeing a Turkish store on screen, but the on-point pacing of the film has a lot to do with it.
Another odd throughline is how the courthouse is constantly leaking, which comes to a head at a very inopportune moment. Writer/director Selman Nacar had only made one feature before this, but he carries the influence of Asghar Farhadi, in this film, at least.
Apparently, hesitation wounds are cuts made on the body of a person who has decided not to commit suicide. This is a clear reference to Musa, who has been through some horrible stuff, but it may also point to a wider theme of indecisiveness and fear of commitment (not pulling the plug on mum, or Canan leaving her small town).
The two strands of the plot – the murder case and the mother in hospital – travel alongside one another and only show their connection quite late on in proceedings (maybe a more observant viewer could have seen it coming…). Best not to reveal too much, but the case judge (Vedat Erincin) has a bit to do with it, and it’s notable that just one of the strands seems to tie up neatly. The other is left hanging in a satisfyingly open-ended way. We must decide on potential outcomes.
Full of great little touches, naturalistic performances (Özen is brilliant), this is a top-notch humanistic drama.’
