The Texture of Distance: Approaching Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant
By Julie Banks

Released in 2002, Distant (Uzak) is the final part of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's unofficial trilogy, starting with The Small Town [Kasaba] in 1997 and continuing, in 1999, with Clouds of May [Mayis Sikintisi]. The trilogy features Mehmet Emin Toprak as a young man negotiating identity and belonging, with each film progressively responding to the questions posed by its predecessor. While Toprak's characters change, they remain essentially the same figure, negotiating similar psychological terrain, enabling the films to be read not as studies of individual psychology or motivation, but as meditations on a familiar character type or trope. As Saffet in The Small Town, Mehmet Emin Toprak grapples with the question of whether it is better to stay in his small hometown with its familiarity – both supportive and oppressive – or seek a life elsewhere; as Emin in Clouds of May, he seeks to leave the confines and perceived constraints of the small town, and finally as Yusuf in Distant, he is the country-boy seeking transformation and a new life in the city and beyond. Having lost his job, Yusuf travels to Istanbul to seek work onboard ships traveling the world. He arranges to stay with his relative, Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir), a commercial photographer living alone following the breakdown of his marriage. While Yusuf embodies an ultimately vain search for transformation and connection in the unknown city, Mahmut is alienated in his own right. Mahmut struggles with and yet is resigned to the distance between his present life and his ideals and ambitions.

It is difficult to ignore the autobiographical elements in Distant, and indeed in all of Ceylan's films. Ceylan has said that "[a]ll my films are in some sense based on my own experiences, but once you start making the film you begin to forget which, because you change everything."[1] Although born in Istanbul, Ceylan spent much of his childhood in the town of Yenice, which is the setting for The Small Town and Clouds of May. Ceylan's ongoing practice as a photographer is reflected not only in Mahmut's profession in Distant, but is also a recurring motif through Climates (Ikimler, 2006). Further, much in the vein of Cassavetes, his films are populated with his family as cast and crew. In Distant, Toprak, who was killed in a car accident shortly after the film was finished, was Ceylan's cousin; his wife, Ebru Ceylan, plays the neighboring woman who is the object of Yusuf's attention, as well as being credited for art direction; while his mother plays Mahmut's mother. Mahmut's apartment is in fact Ceylan's home, with filming taking place amid his family's own day-to-day domestic life. While interesting and engaging, I don't find a biographical approach to Ceylan's work particularly fruitful or useful as it closes down our reading to one that is distinctly narratological.

Distant also responds readily to a reading of its symbols and metaphors as expressing the alienation of contemporary life. However, far more engaging are the stylistic elements and techniques Ceylan employs both in service to the narrative, and to create a visual and aural texture that invokes the texture of the everyday. This texture is found as much through attention to quotidian details as through the stylistic and formal excess that reveals the crafting of the sense of "reality" in the film. As Asuman Suner notes, "the ordinary situations of everyday life in Ceylan's films seem to be both all too real and yet somewhat skewed and bizarre, because of the director's constant interrogation of the nature of cinematic reality."[2] This is evident, for example, in the scene in which we watch Mahmut photographing tiles, a scene that introduces us to his work as a commercial photographer and shows the distance between this daily reality and his creative ambitions. Mahmut stages the shot, repeatedly placing a tile on the easel, returning to the camera and taking the shot before removing the tile and replacing it with another, his actions marked by the sound and burst of light from the flash-bulb. There's a sense of blankness in this scene, of an act evacuated of meaning. And in the flashes of light we get a striking sense of the staccato rhythm and repetition of Mahmut's everyday life.

Color and texture

Bracketing the opening credits are two scenes in which we are introduced to Yusuf and Mahmut. The film opens with a long shot of a mountain scene, a small town dotted on its flank. In the foreground is a vast flat expanse of snow across which a figure moves, diminished by the landscape. The shot lasts just under three minutes, during which the figure, Yusuf, moves closer, climbing the embankment up to the road. The camera pans to take in a road snaking through the landscape, with Yusuf waiting to hitch a ride away from this place. The shot is open and expansive. The light is that of the early morning – clear and crisp, yet casting the shadow of the mountain across the plateau – and the detail is sparse. Over the credits, which are in a simple, almost stark sans-serif font, white text on black background, the sound of the previous shot continues. We hear the car that had been coming into view at the end of the shot stopping for Yusuf and then driving on. The credits continue in silence for some moments before the sounds of movement, creaking and footsteps are audible. The credits cut to a darkened room. The shot is close and focused on the back of a man's head taking up half of the frame, while in the remainder, the blurred figure of a woman (Nazan Kirilmiş) is visible, slowly removing her shirt before lying down on the bed. The framing, lighting and focus of the shot are insular and bleak, as is the strangely passionless scene they reflect. Wind chimes can be heard, and Mahmut gets up and walks towards the bed, moving out-of-focus as he does so, and sitting beside the woman with a loud sigh.

Both scenes use minimal color, at different extremes of light and dark, as well as being single, continuous shots. In these two scenes, both Yusuf and Mahmut are characterized as isolated and alienated, but through very different filmic techniques and the employment of abundant symbols or signposts for their psychological condition. These two scenes are visually loaded and obviously set in counterpoint to establish a comparison between the two men and the ways they will be formally rendered in the film in terms of light, color, setting and framing.

What makes this sequence even more interesting is a parallel sequence about two-thirds (67 minutes) into the film. In contrast to the earlier sequence in which the emphasis is more on tone or shade (light and dark), this section is marked by a strong, almost overstated use of color. Further, the very different structures of the sequences are notable, the latter using multiple shots and camera angles in contrast to the single-shot opening scenes. After Mahmut asks him to be out of the house for the evening, Yusuf wanders through the streets of Istanbul, following and watching women and looking at the city. The camera orientation varies, in the main capturing Yusuf observing the city, while at other points looking as from his perspective. That is, the camera both observes and reflects his gaze. In this sequence, the shots in which Yusuf follows or stares at women are structured so we observe his observation. This occurs even when Yusuf isn't in frame, the shot moving or lingering until he moves into it. In contrast, in his movement through the city we often see him from behind, or in profile. These shots, while still taking in much of the detail of the surroundings are tighter than in the opening scene. Further, the scene is made up of multiple shots and creates a sense of density in contrast to the simplicity of the opening scene.

After two interior sequences – set in a shopping mall and the foyer of a cinema, and in a train carriage, respectively – the scene cuts to Yusuf at the water's edge, a mosque in the background. The image cuts to a close-up of two plates of fish on asphalt, with a small fish flipping frenetically on the asphalt. The symbolism of a "fish out of water" is at once painfully literal, beautifully rendered and comic. The "meaning" of this symbolism is unmistakable, but its obviousness and gentle humor stop it from being didactic and invite us to view this as a knowing, and almost mocking reference.

After a cut to a close-up of Yusuf looking down (presumably at the fish), part of his face obscured in shadow, with the sound of the traffic we see in the background, Yusuf walks out of the frame, and the camera lingers on the traffic for a few moments, before cutting to a long shot at the water's edge at early evening, the city in the background. Saturated with a blue light, the shot glows and the color becomes almost diverting. The camera pans across the railing at the water's edge with the city in the background, moving until Yusuf comes into frame, standing with his back to the camera looking out to the water. Turning to face the camera, Yusuf moves into the center of the frame, looking off into the distance for a few moments, before walking in the direction he was looking towards, the camera panning to show the city, traffic, and, amid the deep cobalt tones, the mosque shining in a bright, clear light. The blue calls to mind Jarman's Blue (1993), and its potent exploration of the limits of the image.[3] We lose sight of Yusuf amid the deep blue and shadows, allowing the city, the brilliantly lit mosque, and the sound of the traffic to become our focus. Amid this we hear a dissonant chiming and a sound of distortion or feedback – a sound that recurs repeatedly throughout the film. This sound continues into the next scene. This sound-bleed from the next scene into the current is a common trope in Ceylan's films. In this instance, the distorted sound serves not only to connect the two scenes, but also signals the scenes and the characters as being dissonant or out of step.

The scene cuts to Mahmut's apartment. In contrast to the previous scene, the image is infused with a green tone. The shot opens on Mahmut, in a green t-shirt, amid this greenish light, curled on the bed, facing away from the camera. It is a middle-distance shot, encompassing the bed and part of the room, contrasting to the long shot that closed the previous scene. Mahmut rolls onto his back, and we again hear a chime, the sound "chiming in" with the earlier scene and the repeated instances of the chime throughout the film. As in the opening scene, Mahmut's face is obscured. The scene cuts to the same woman in the bathroom. She is similarly in a greenish light, and her gaze is downcast, and once again the shot takes in the surroundings as much as the human figure. While central to the frame, she is only seen in reflection in the bathroom mirror, seemingly to reaffirm that her purpose in the film is only as a reflection of Mahmut's dysfunction (and perhaps reflecting the status of women in Ceylan's films more generally, with women largely occupying superficial roles that offer depth to the male protagonists only). The discordant chiming continues, at once a fugitive sound and an excessive one through its repetition. The shot cuts back to Mahmut, in the foreground and focal within the frame, lying on his back on the bed. The light is off, and in keeping with Ceylan's minimal use of additional lighting, the frame is dark, yet still retains the murky-green tone. The camera is pulled in tighter on Mahmut than in the opening shot of this scene. In the out-of-focus shadows we see the woman return to the room, collect her things, and walk out. Mahmut remains passive on the bed, unspeaking and only moving his head to watch as she leaves. It is only when the door bell rings, twice, and Mahmut answers the door to admit Yusuf, that he turns on the light. While the shot continues, it is turning on the light that marks the end of the scene. What's striking here is the way color and light is pivotal to both of these scenes, and draws a connection not only between them, but also between this and the opening sequence.

Humor and play

"I think humor is always the brother of tragedy or sad things; and I think that with humor tragedy becomes more convincing." – Nuri Bilge Ceylan[4]

There is a subtle playfulness in the film, in the techniques, imagery and style Ceylan employs as well as the dialogue. This lends a nostalgia and gentleness to the ennui and dislocation the characters evince. More than this, it is also a little like an in-joke, allowing the audience to approach the film with humor, and in so doing allowing us to read some of the weightier and more obvious symbolism as knowingly obvious. As Yvette Biro states in relation to the "serenity and meditative attention of ordinary people" in the films of Ozu, "if the story were not spiced with subtle irony and the surrealism of things lurking just beneath the surface, we could soon sink into sentimentality… Individual destinies are placed in a larger context, allowing the viewer to be more forbearing and accepting in a gently mocking manner."[5] With the humor Ceylan allows us, the sometimes ponderous and blatant symbolism of the two men's alienation and "distance" can be read as drawing on a lineage of film and cultural references to make the symbolic point at once more obvious, and less cumbersome and didactic.

When we see Mahmut sitting at his desk, flanked by a wall of books, a computer beside him, the answering machine next to him playing a series of missed calls from his sister telling him of their mother's hospitalization, as he flips through, and ultimately discards largely without opening, a large pile of mail, we're in no doubt that the meaning we are meant to take is of the plethora of means of communication that only add to alienation in contemporary society.[6] But the scene, in its excess and the obviousness of its motifs, is droll, bringing to mind the comic and socially incisive films of Jacques Tati. Similarly, when Mahmut switches from Tarkovsky's Stalker to porn after Yusuf leaves the room, rapidly reverting to channel surfing when Yusuf returns, we understand the clear symbolism of the loss of Mahmut's creative ambitions and the distance between these and his current life, as well as a sense of his dispassion and lack of engagement with sexuality (he watches the porn as impassively as he was watching Stalker). More than this, we can also be amused by and empathetic towards his embarrassment at the everyday humiliation of being caught out, and the furtive pleasure (and potential embarrassment) of "lowbrow" over "highbrow," "entertainment" over "art."

The gentle humor is also beautifully played out in the scene in which Mahmut tends to his mother in hospital. The lighting and cast of the scene is dim and sepia-like, evoking a sense of nostalgia and familiarity. Familiar also from Ceylan's oeuvre are the sounds of nature, in the form of thunder, and the image of feet visible at the end of a bed, carrying a symbolism of intimacy and affection. To the left of the frame there is a figure, Mahmut, on a bed. We can't see his head, his body is covered by a blanket, with his feet visible. Central to the shot is an older woman, Mahmut's mother (Fatma Ceylan), sitting on the edge of a hospital bed; the tubes and drips emblematic of the hospital setting are obvious beside her, and she moans in pain. Mahmut moves into the frame, helping his mother to her feet, so she can walk to try to alleviate the pain. What begins at this point is a comic (and vaguely misogynistic) sequence in which Mahmut is berated by his mother, who tells him to hold the bag of serum "Higher! Higher!" and states that "sickness comes when you least expect it. And you smoke too much!" This continues, as the camera follows them down a darkened corridor, towards a light. The stationary camera gives the impression of mother and son moving off into the distance. What begins with Mahmut and his mother filling the frame becomes a mid-distance shot as they walk slowly down the corridor, allowing the blankness of the surroundings to become evident. There's a sense of the corridor and the harangue going on forever, a sense of interminability. In this nostalgic and affectionate scene, the camera is positioned as though we were observing Mahmut and his mother going about the quotidian reality of family relationships in all their niggling frustration and deadpan humor.

Music and sound

Like the use of lighting effects, in general sound is spare and incidental in Distant. When sound effects and a musical score are used, the effect is prominent. The first voice we hear isn't until over seven minutes into the film, and it is at a remove: a phone message from Mahmut's mother which he hears as he stands next to the answering machine, not answering the phone. There continues to be limited dialogue throughout the film, with long stretches marked only by incidental sounds. Within this context, the occurrence of music and other sounds not intrinsic to the scene are jarring, either because the sound is furtive and difficult to grasp, or obvious and almost bloated. In both instances it begs our awareness of it; we're reminded that these are moments freighted with emotion and to be read knowingly as such.

The musical score is introduced approximately 45 minutes into the film. The scene is a coffeehouse in which Mahmut sits with his ex-wife, Nazan (Zuhal Gencer Erkaya). Shot almost exclusively from behind Mahmut's head, the focus is on Nazan who is facing the camera, leaving Mahmut out of focus. Nazan explains that she is leaving Istanbul to move to Canada with her partner, Orhan. She talks of their desperate but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to conceive. The dialogue is loaded with past hurts, guilt and emotional fragmentation, which is reinforced by the shot structure. While we hear Mahmut's occasional question or reply, there's no engagement with it, as Ceylan resists the shot/reverse-shot structure that would give us access to his response. The reverse shot only occurs shortly before the end of the scene, after Nazan tells Mahmut that she has offered Orhan a separation because of her infertility, which he refused. The shot cuts to Mahmut looking like a caricature of dejection and disappointment. At this point the awkwardness of the untrained Muzaffer Özdemir's acting is both highly evident and perfectly appropriate. The fact that the scene ends on this reverse shot reminds us that while we were looking at Nazan, the attention of the scene has never actually shifted from Mahmut. Further, while Nazan's narrative is one of difficulty and hurt, Mahmut's engagement with it, and in turn the audience's engagement with his response, is only at the point at which the potential fleetingly exists for him to re-establish a relationship with Nazan, or more bluntly, to reinsert himself into her narrative.

This scene is the first time we hear music that is not incidental to the scene itself. Music has been used previously, but only diegetically. The score, Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante K.364, remains low but obvious, and is jarring simply through its unheralded presence. It stops in the next scene, in which we see Mahmut in a long shot, standing at the edge of a road, looking out toward a body of still, grey-hued water. We rarely see Mahmut outside and this shot lasts less than twenty seconds before he gets back into his car, sitting momentarily before driving out of frame.

The next scene is a suburban, snow-lined street at night. Mahmut's car moves into frame from right. Darkness and a sense of cold pervade the scene, despite the intimation of domesticity from the suburban setting itself. The car pulls over, and inside we see Mahmut, mostly obscured in shadow. The music begins again as the shot cuts from a close-up of Mahmut, in the shadows of the car looking up at a house, to a wider shot, angled upwards, as from Mahmut's perspective, to a set of windows illuminated from within, which we take to be Nazan and Orhan's home. The strains of Mozart continue as the shot cuts back to an even tighter close-up of Mahmut's face, partially obscured in shadow, still looking up towards the window. This is the return of the thwarted shot/reverse shot from the previous scene, with Mahmut's gaze unreturned by the impassive, inanimate house. The Mozart piece continues throughout this scene, freighting it with a sense of loss. It does this, not simply because of the melancholy nature of the music itself, but also by calling on our familiarity with the trope of music being used to create affect or sentiment in this manner.

The next scene emphasizes this neatly. The scene opens on a wide shot of a warmly lit bar, the image toned with a warm yellowish hue. Mahmut is slumped at a table in the right foreground. While occupying only a small section of the frame he is the focal point. The remainder of the room is out-of-focus; however, movement, conviviality and intimacy are evident, not least in the warm tones (and jazz music playing). The structure of this shot creates a tension within the frame, making the remainder of the room, despite being out of focus, as visually engaging as Mahmut in the foreground. The music is integrated within the scene itself, offering a distinct counterpoint to the disconnected score in the previous scenes. Behind Mahmut, we see a couple enter the bar. The focus shifts to them, leaving Mahmut out of focus, at the periphery yet foregrounded in the shot. The interaction between the man and woman occupies our attention. Mahmut settles the bill, while we continue to watch the couple. What is important is the timbre of the scene, created by the warmth and saturation of the color, the massing of detail and activity in the surroundings, and both the lightness and the integrated nature of the music. These elements combine to make explicit that the classical music from the previous scenes is an intentional and knowing contrivance, the manipulative nature of which we are completely aware.

Conclusion

Ultimately, very little occurs in Distant as the film tracks both Mahmut and Yusuf's lives and their connections and disconnections with each other, those around them and the city itself. What we observe both in the progress of the narrative and in stylistic effects are the quotidian, the texture of day-to-day life. Ceylan's framing and shot construction, as well as his use of color and sound, allow the texture and density of the surroundings to register as distinctly as the characters. Ceylan employs exterior long shots and mid-distance shots indoors that encompass the details of place, while situating the characters within a specific space. The landscape and surroundings are accorded a place in the narrative, while simultaneously the narrative itself becomes less significant, allowing us to look instead at the texture of the everyday.

Julie Banks
© FIPRESCI 2010

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