2014 ‘Kış Uykusu’ Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Aydin, a retired actor, owns a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal and his sister Necla, who is coping with her recent divorce. During the winter, snow covers the ground and boredom brings the return of old memories, pushing Aydin to flee…
Il regno d’inverno, 冬日苏醒, Sono de Inverno, Qis Yuxusu, Sueño de invierno, Зимен сън, Sommeil d'hiver, Winterschlaf, Vintersøvn, Χειμερία νάρκη, Heimeria narki, Téli álom, Zimowy sen, Zimski san, Зимняя спячка, Vinterdvala, Zimsko spanje, Зимова сплячка, 윈터 슬립, البيات الشتوي, Zimní spánek, Χειμερία Νάρκη, Winter Sleep (Sueño de invierno), Sueños de invierno, שנת החורף, Il regno d'inverno - Winter Sleep, Žiemos miegas, Зимски сан, 冬眠, 冬日甦醒
Epic history and literature Faith and religion Moving relationship stories emotional, emotion, family, moving or feelings religion, church, faith, beliefs or spiritual marriage, emotion, romance, feelings or relationships historical, royalty, sumptuous, lavish or drama emotion, emotional, moving, sadness or feelings Show All…
Aydin is a deeply flawed human being. He is condescending, manipulative, phony, he thinks of himself as profound when in fact he is shallow. He mistakes his selfishness for altruism, he expects nothing in return but ardently seeks personal gain or comfort. He finds his encounters with the tenants embarrassing, he avoids them like the plague, yet he doesn't miss a chance to mockingly assert his superiority. He wants to appear modest yet he will accept any words of praise or will turn others' shame into his moment of glory. He is friendly to the tourists not because he is kind but because it gives him a sense of gratification. He writes for the local newspaper to satisfy his intellectual…
Tiff 2014 capsule - film 2
I took the train from Paris to Milan a long time ago and I remember looking out the window at the majestic mountains admiring them, of course, but it wasn't until we got into Northern Italy that I found them beautiful and alive. It was there that real life was sprinkled throughout the mountains, with clotheslines everywhere and junkyards and swing sets. It was there that I loved those mountains.
Give Nuri Bilge Ceylan the most beautiful setting in the world and he will show you the clotheslines. It is why I trust him. I will listen to anything he wants to tell me because I know that whatever story he tells, it will…
What began as modest camaraderie for Aydin, the film's amiable lead gradually deteriorated into a sense of shame, not of him but of myself. To be clear I have never been nor ever will be a wealthy, dogmatic landlord repossessing the furniture of my tenants for paying their medical bills instead of rent, yet I could see myself identifying with much of Aydin's disposition. He is educated, cultured, inviting, and well-spoken, and, most importantly, he is reasonable. I say that knowing that he is in actuality quite disagreeable, but the danger of someone with all these traits is that it is so easy to buy into the idea that someone this Intelligent, this Conversational, this Reasonable, is someone who is…
TIFF 2014 Film #2
Reason for pick, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan – Climates, 3 Monkeys, Once Upon a Time In Anatolia
Visually stunning and lyrically beautiful, Winter Sleep carries you along like a leaf on a river. It’s amazing how Ceylan can craft such an engaging story with only conversation; virtually eschewing a traditional story arc.
A common thread through Ceylan’s filmography is an un-hurried approach, and at nearly three and a half hours, it would be fair to say that Winter Sleep is his least rushed. While the thought of this generous runtime being filled with only characters conversing may sound tedious, it’s not. With every incident, every individual conversation, another layer is peeled away from our characters.
Haluk…
#6 out of 6 recommendations by Twitch followers
Recommended by agustin.
Ceylan has successfully conquered enough international celluloid territory to state two main things:
a) Reaching the visually mesmerizing and narrative levels of Zanussi, Bergman and Vlácil is not an impossibility for modern cinema
b) "I can surpass Uzak (2002)".
This is not a thesis or an essay about the human condition, nor an exercise in universally appealing narrative; this is a personal letter towards a central axyomatic struggle that applies to all human beings: that between our ideological moral foundations and our applied practices.
As the snow accentuates, so does the true nature of each individual in this film; at first, Ceylan places human pieces in a strategic chess…
''Now is the winter of our discontent''
Opening night at my local small town cinema, myself and two elderly men two rows behind me - exactly what I expected (a Turkish subtitled 196 min film with no intermission), and also exactly what I wanted. Near silence and the darkness of the cosy theatre made way for complete immersion into the wintry Anatolian landscape that I had been craving ever since the film's Palme d'Or win at Cannes earlier in the year.
Adored filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan might expand the borders of his visual canvas with every film, but he is also careful never to let anything pretty on screen get in the way of a good story or rich characterization,…
Winter Sleep is a microcosm of social power imbalances. It is about the powerful and the powerless. To examine this it centres on a man with a spiritually corrupt soul. He's intelligent, multilingual, and rich. However he is a destructive person, blind to the misery he causes. He sees himself as a benevolent cultural and economic leader, but is actually hated by all in the community, including his wife. He's steeped in judgements of the poor and powerless, though he likes to criticise from his armchair rather than actually deal with anything. He is a landlord detached from the problems of his tenants. He's arrogant, thinking little of those he thinks he has power over. However he is a man…
55/100
A.V. Club review. Loved every moment of this except the moments when the people would not stop talking please for the love of god shut up now.
Winner of the prestigious Palme d'Or at 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Winter Sleep arrives with high expectations but succeeds amazingly well in living up to its new-found honour for this Turkish drama is simply one of the most engrossing, mesmerizing & satisfying narratives to surface on the silver screen in the past year, and is definitely one of the best films of 2014.
Set in Anatolia, the story of Winter Sleep concerns Aydın; the wealthy owner of a mountaintop hotel who was once an actor but has since fallen into the hibernation mode over the years. The plot covers the chaos his self-involved persona brings to his small kingdom as the animosity of his loved ones & the poor people under his…
Who would expect a 3-hour Nuri Bilge Ceylan arthouse drama to be this entertaining? Winter Sleep, the visually mesmerizing Palme d'Or winner from Turkey, is close to my favorite Ceylan output.
Winter Sleep tackles something larger than life, while retaining its unmistakable Turkish identity and social commentary. Following a retired actor's stay at his family hotel during winter time, Winter Sleep is a wonderful treat for the eyes thanks to its glorious cinematography, and unlike Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Ceylan thankfully didn't sacrifice storytelling for the sake of anything else this time. Overall it's a naturalistic insight into the miseries of the individuals emotionally strained in the hotel.
Winter Sleep definitely touches on the gaping divides between classes…
"Look, this is going to take a while, so you'd better have a seat. Let's talk Turkey." -- Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Before I begin, you should know that this is the first "lengthy" review I've written for a long, long time, so bear with me as I try to overcome the anxiety of trying to transform my thoughts into words.
Ok, let's go.
In Winter Sleep, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan once again returns to the barren landscape of Anatolia (ref: Once Upon A Time in Anatolia). This time, specifically in the mountains of Cappadocia.
The rock-cut houses and distinctive mountain formations of Cappadocia form a powerful (and perhaps also metaphorical?) backdrop for a movie where power, morality and humility are key, and humiliations appear in many forms, shapes and sizes. Ceylan uses his rich set of characters to explore the many…
