WHAT A PAIR

CLOUDS OF MAY (MAYIS SIKINTISI), 1999
Turkiye | 35mm, Colour, 130’ | Turkish
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Cast: M.Emin Ceylan, Muzaffer Özdemir, Fatma Ceylan, Muhammed Zımbaoğlu, M.Emin Toprak, Sadık İncesu

EGG (YUMURTA), 2007
Turkiye | 35mm, Colour, 97’ | Turkish
Director: Semih Kaplanoğlu
Cast: Nejat İşler, Saadet Işıl Aksoy, Ufuk Bayraktar, Tülin Özen, Gülç,n Satırcıoğlu, Kaan Karabacak

When Clouds of May made an appearance in Turkish cinema in 1999, it might have started the glut of provincial themed films that ended with 2013’s sardonically toned Yozgat Blues. With Clouds of May, the province emerged as a state of “boredom”, “guilt”, and “yearning” in male directors’ films. The main characters of these films were young men who wanted to be artists and they were willing to confront their pasts that were represented by the province. The young director in Clouds of May returns to his small town in order to make a film about his family. The family has no interest in the subject, but they have good intentions. So, in order to help their son, they agree to be actors in a film which they have no idea of its content as the son tries to capture the daily routine of his family. A film within a film; the film which is being shot is Koza / Cocoon. ButClouds of May is essentially about “time”. The wind blows, clouds pass by, poplars rustle, a small boy becomes obsessed with a plastic watch, he deliberately throws a basket of tomatoes down a slope as if just to spite the tyrant routine of the province and the slow passing of time. A young man dreams of a life away from the province to escape the same oppressive passage. The film tells us that the province is just made up of this ponderously slow passing of time, and this is actually a beautiful thing. In 2007’s Egg, the main character is a poet, who, upon his “mother’s” final call, returns to the province, which he thought he had left behind and completely forgot about while living in the city. The mother is not there anymore as a being, but she has plans for the “son”, ways she points out to. There is a future she reminds him which he thought he had left behind, but will realize that he didn’t. Province is the mother; the one who embraces. With their exquisitely poetic narratives, splendid visuals, and almost narcissistic beauty, both films make us think that whether it’s “distant”, “lonely” or has stubbornly “chosen to be lonely,” the soul climate of the place we call Turkey is some kind of a province and its state of mind is as “uncomprehended”, “not wanting to be understood”, resentful, and slightly broken-hearted as the young men in these films. -Fatih Özgüven