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A new Turkish film on the Battle of Sarikamish. The cinematographer is a Yerevan-born Armenian, who has been working on Turkish films since at least the early 2000s...
When I attended the press screening of “Eve Dönüş: Sarıkamış 1915” (The Long Way Home), I expected to watch another immensely patriotic film depicting the era of the Turkish War of Independence composed of over-the-top valor, didactic dialogue and an unconvincing depiction of characters who are stereotypes as opposed to real human beings.
I was thankfully mistaken, for “The Long Way Home” could possibly be the best film of this decade, choosing to seek a different approach in illustrating a piece of Turkish history from the early 20th century, and what's more it is acted and filmed beautifully.
The film is director Alphan Eşeli's debut feature, a long-time photographer and advertisement director who gracefully makes an entrance into cinema with this gem of a film.
It is 1915, during World War I, and the Ottoman Empire, which is allied with the Germans, has just been hit with a massive defeat after the battle of Sarıkamış in eastern Anatolia fought against the Russians. Ninety thousand soldiers have died, and some of their corpses are left to freeze in the tundra climate of the environs of Kars. It is right after this battle that a handful of characters are trying to find their way in this wintry landscape, in order to get to their homes in the western parts of the country.
We first meet Saci (Uğur Polat), an upper class Ottoman bureaucrat, who is traveling with his colleague's wife, Gül (Nergis Öztürk) and her daughter, Nihan (Myraslava Kosteyeva), through the mountains to ensure their safe arrival in İstanbul. The problem is that all roads are blocked by snow and the country is already in chaos, which means the trio has to fend for themselves as they walk through the snow to find a safe haven. They arrive in a deserted Armenian village in which they encounter the corpses of several soldiers. This is the only shelter they can find.
Read the rest here.
I was thankfully mistaken, for “The Long Way Home” could possibly be the best film of this decade, choosing to seek a different approach in illustrating a piece of Turkish history from the early 20th century, and what's more it is acted and filmed beautifully.
The film is director Alphan Eşeli's debut feature, a long-time photographer and advertisement director who gracefully makes an entrance into cinema with this gem of a film.
It is 1915, during World War I, and the Ottoman Empire, which is allied with the Germans, has just been hit with a massive defeat after the battle of Sarıkamış in eastern Anatolia fought against the Russians. Ninety thousand soldiers have died, and some of their corpses are left to freeze in the tundra climate of the environs of Kars. It is right after this battle that a handful of characters are trying to find their way in this wintry landscape, in order to get to their homes in the western parts of the country.
We first meet Saci (Uğur Polat), an upper class Ottoman bureaucrat, who is traveling with his colleague's wife, Gül (Nergis Öztürk) and her daughter, Nihan (Myraslava Kosteyeva), through the mountains to ensure their safe arrival in İstanbul. The problem is that all roads are blocked by snow and the country is already in chaos, which means the trio has to fend for themselves as they walk through the snow to find a safe haven. They arrive in a deserted Armenian village in which they encounter the corpses of several soldiers. This is the only shelter they can find.
Read the rest here.
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