A struggling young writer's relationship with his gambling addicted
father becomes increasingly estranged.
Directed by: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Starring: Dogu Demirkol, Murat Cemcir, Bennu
Yildirimlar, Hazar Ergüçlü, Serkan Keskin
Writer/director Nuri Bilge Ceylan follows up
his 2014 Palme d'Or winner Winter Sleep
with another lengthy drama set in rural Turkey. And as with his previous
film, The Wild Pear Tree gives us a protagonist who considers
himself the intellectual and moral superior of the residents of a town he
wishes to "drop an atom bomb on."
Having finished college and completed his first novel, Sinan (Aydın Doğu Demirkol) returns to his home village, near the port of Çanakkale, home to
both the world's largest preserved battlefield at Gallipoli and the ancient
city of Troy. The residents take great pride in hosting such historically
significant attractions, but Sinan has little but contempt for the place of
his birth, seeing the locals as small-minded bumpkins. He's forced however
to suck up to the town's bigwigs, hoping one of them will finance the
publishing of his novel, but is largely met with hostility due to his
inability to talk to anyone without rubbing them up the wrong way with his
air of intellectual supremacy.
Much of the film focusses on Sinan's increasingly estranged relationship
with his father, Idris (Murat Cemcir), a primary school teacher whose
gambling addiction has led to him making several enemies in town, not to
mention plunging the family home into darkness when he can't pay the
electricity bill. This gives Sinan a chance to affect a moral superiority
over his wayward father, but we get the sense that the young man is consumed
with jealousy of his father's ability to be happy with his lot. In spite
of his failings, Idris has a secure job and a loving wife, two things Sinan,
like so many young men of his generation, doubts he may ever possess.
As with Winter Sleep, The Wild Pear Tree plays out in a series of largely passive
aggressive conversations, the subjects of which range from such heady topics
as classism, religion and philosophy to more mundane, albeit more practical
debates like the best way to retrieve a bucket from a well or get a couch up
a flight of stairs. Ceylan's setting and its people feel so lived-in that at
times we feel like a child tugging at the sleeve of a parent who stopped to
talk to a neighbour while out for a walk, references to local dramas we
aren't privy to dropped into the middle of heated debates.
Some of the conversations seem to stretch on endlessly, but they're never
less than compelling. Ceylan's film is a Wrestlemania for lovers of great
dialogue, offering us a card packed with riveting bouts between actors who
must truly cherish the gift of such substantial material. We're treated to
one meaty scene after another, but perhaps the highlight is a heated
discussion/argument between Sinan and a successful author (Serkan Keskin) whose triumphs Sinan clearly resents.
While Ceylan's main strength is his dialogue, and as you spend so much of
The Wild Pear Tree's running time reading its subtitles if you aren't a Turkish speaker, it
can be easy to overlook how visually splendid his film is. As with
Winter Sleep, we're treated to the sort of scenic backdrop most of us dream of
holidaying in, which makes its protagonist's scorn for his home seem all the
more churlish. Before viewing, I had read that Ceylan's film contains an
unbroken 20 minute tracking shot, but I was so consumed by the drama that
such technical nuances eluded me on this watch.
While The Wild Pear Tree is as dialogue heavy a movie as you're likely to see, it's ultimately a film about unspoken truths
between a father and son, neither of which truly understands the other, but
whose bond proves stronger than the ropes that continually fail to haul
buckets from wells and couches up stairs.
The Wild Pear Tree is on MUBI UK
now.
