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CONFESSION
6/10
Itiraf
: Turkey 2001 : Zeki Demirkubuz : 91 mins
A
husband answers the telephone while his wife sleeps in the next room.
The caller immediately hangs up. This established cinematic shorthand
for infidelity sets Confession on its dramatic course: the husband
Harun (Taner Birsel) stews in paranoid jealousy while his wife Nilgun
(Basak Koklukaya) somewhat ineptly tries to carry on her affair with an
unseen lover. The pressure mounts, until Harun finally snaps and demands
Nilgun confess to her misdeeds…
Demirkubuz
has been hailed as the next big thing in ‘world cinema’ – i.e. arthouse
and festival movies – since Confession and its companion-piece
Fate (the first two episodes in his projected ‘Tales Against Darkness’
trilogy) made history by both being selected for the Directors’ Fortnight
at Cannes. An undeniably impressive achievement – but, then again, very
few directors will ever have two new films ready at the same time, and
it isn’t as though Demirkubuz’s films actually made it into the elite
Competition section.
Comparisons
with Kieslowski and Bergman are, on this evidence, somewhat premature.
This is a solid, absorbing and economical film, unfolding in the ultra-modern
confines of Ankara, Turkey’s most sophisticated and forward-looking metropolis:
Harun often watches CNN, enabling Tony Blair to notch an unlikely extended
cameo during one news report.
Daringly,
Demirkubuz keeps most of the film’s action off screen – we’re filled in
on the complex pre-story behind Nilgun and Harun’s marriage (involving
an unseen key character, Taylan) by means of retrospective conversations.
Likewise, Nilgun’s problems afer she leaves her husband are related to
both the audience and Harun himself by a gossipy family friend. The friend,
Ayse (?Gulgun Kutlu?), is a welcome, no-nonsense presence, her fast-talking
monologue arriving on the scene just as audiences may be starting to tire
of Demirkubuz’s ostentatiously unhurried storytelling pace.
Because, as with too many current directors, Demirkubuz seems to think that,
by filling his script with brooding silences and some judicious excerpts
of doomy classical music (in this case, Mahler), the results will automatically
be interpreted as serious art: Carlos Reygadas’ Japon
being the most extreme example of this trend. Demirkubuz is, however,
a much more thoughtful, mature and talented writer, and he’s able to draw
compelling performances from his leads Birsel and Koklukaya as both characters
make the painful journey from chronic unhappiness, through despair, to
an ambiguous glimmer of what might just be hope.
19th September, 2002
(seen 23rd August, on video – Edinburgh
Film Festival)
For all the
reviews from the 2002 Edinburgh Film Festival
click here.
by Neil
Young
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