Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan writes and directs the taciturn drama Uzak (Distant). Following a major economic crisis, the young dreamer Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak) leaves his small village in search of employment on a ship. He arrives in Istanbul to stay with his relative Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir). Living alone and working as a photographer, Mahmut's ordered life is disrupted by the presence of Yusuf. He is also disturbed when he learns that his ex-wife, Nazan (Zuhal Gencer Erkaya), is moving to Canada with her new husband. Mahmut cannot speak with his mother (Fatma Ceylan), Yusuf cannot talk to a girl he likes (Ebru Ceylan), and the two men barely communicate with each other. Uzak won the Grand Jury Prize while both leads won Best Actor at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

Review by Josh Ralske
Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant is a lugubriously paced reflection on modern urban life. Ceylan captures his story in bleakly beautiful images and portraits of the two struggling main characters that convey tremendous sadness, despite an underlying dry wit (as demonstrated in the bits of business involving efforts to trap a mouse that plagues Mahmut's Muzaffer Özdemir apartment) and restraint that keeps the film from becoming maudlin. It's a painstaking character study, and Ceylan lets the details of these characters' lives build slowly. Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak, who died in a car accident shortly after the film was made) is good-natured, but naïve, and he doesn't understand the importance Mahmut places in having things a certain way. Mahmut seems cold and somewhat pretentious, and it's only in the film's final third that Ceylan gives us an inkling of why he behaves the way he does. These are wonderful characters and often great fun to watch, as in the scene where Mahmut is watching Tarkovsky's Stalker late one night, while Yusuf sits with him, bored at the repetitive and uneventful images onscreen. Eventually, Yusuf goes to bed, and Mahmut's own prurient interests come to light. Ceylan allows the characters room to breathe within the forbidding setting, whether it's Mahmut's anally tidy apartment or the frozen streets of Istanbul. The tale has a deceptive, emotional complexity that builds to a surprisingly heartrending impact.