Yumurta (Egg)

First I have to share with you that when reading about this movie the synopsis and critics/viewers comments were different to what I saw in this movie and I couldn’t believe that I was the only one thinking that there was love in this movie. Finally I found the official press release of the movie and surprise, surprise I’m not alone.

This Semih Kaplanoğlu tells about a poet, Yusuf, living in Istambul that returns to Tire in the Aegean -his birth place- because her mother passed away. He is full of guilt, as since he left he hasn’t comeback much even when he promised his mother to do so. He doesn’t even know a distant relative Ayla that for the past five years has been living with his mother. Mourning and full of guilt he unwillingly agrees to honor a religious pledge her mother did before dying and by doing this founds a new life where he could less imagine.

That’s more or less the outline of the story, but basically tells about what you always wanted to leave behind and how your past becomes a more promising future.

With very little dialogue this full of silences, images and metaphors movie is just a little pleasure to watch for the simple –yet complex- story it tells and the beautiful indoor and outdoors cinematography that suggest careful composition of takes elements. Actors performances are very good as most performing is done with outstanding expressions.

One of the many metaphors is when Ayla gives Yusuf the egg and if that is not love, then I ask you, what else it could be??? This is what puzzled me until I found the official press release.

Anyway the movie has slow pace with nothing much apparently happening, so it is not for all audiences but for those that love art and art cinema movies. The movie was screened in competition at the 2007 Directors’ Fortnight and won 6 awards at the 2007 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival where the film was competing against other great Turkish movies such as Fatih Akin’s Yaşamın Kıyısında (The Edge of Heaven) and Abdullah Oğuz's Mutluluk (Happiness). The movie has other awards and nominations that you can find by browsing the blog.

This is the first film of a trilogy based on the life of Yusuf (it is called Yusuf trilogy) and the following installments are Süt (Milk) and Bal (Honey); what’s interesting is that Yusuf story is going to be told backwards with Süt telling about the time he leaves Tire and Bal about his childhood. I’m looking forward to see the next installments.

Since this is the first Kaplanoğlu movie I see at the beginning I was expecting something to happen, but soon enough thanks to the metaphors I able to start to understand his style and from that moment on, I relaxed and was able to enjoy the visual magic of this film that recalls other directors, so it was no surprise to find that for this movie Kaplanoğlu got his inspiration from great directors such as Tarkovsky, Bresson, Satyajit Ray and Ozu.

Absolutely a must be seen for those that like art and art cinema movies.

Enjoy!!!