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Rating: Turkey: everything begins among the Doric columns of an ancient temple that preserves the eloquence of Euclidean architectural power. Here, the university professor (the director Bilge Ceylan himself) and his TV producer wife (the talented N.Krimlis) symbolically commit the euthanasia of their love, current yet devoid of allure and pathos...
Both feel the archaeology of a sentiment that has become decrepit and can only be revived through memory... just as the ruins they are observing and photographing are traces of a splendor, alas, only imaginable, after time has consumed and worn out the built beauty... The sea below is a witness to a barely concealed end.. Extended silences give way to speaking glances and bodily discomforts that don't require verbalization. At the last dinner with friends, fully aware of the imminent end, while publicly squabbling, she remarks: "Our unhappiness does them good". And they smoke, smoke like Turks.... Inevitably, they part with the fragments of their fragile and insubstantial love in hand. He sees his other woman, different from the one he just left, perhaps complementary.... But even she cannot satisfy his hunger for love and/or give meaning to his days...
Scarlatti's Sonata K 466 in F minor emphasizes breathtaking locations and resounding silences... Minarets among the Anatolian mountains represent a triumph of Aesthetics and contrast the immanent depression of the human protagonists.... The emptiness of their existences brings them back together... But nothing will ever be the same again.. No one has yet been able to prove they can bathe twice in the same river... And amidst the snow that falls abundant and silent.... the definitive end becomes white awareness.. As Scarlatti's sonata, incorporeal and frigid, punctuates the white flakes, the realization is sad, yet absolute.. The epiphonema, for me, is a Horatian or Martial quote: "NEC TECUM NEC SINE TECUM VIVERE POSSUM".... "neither with you, nor without you, can I live".. An experience leading to an explosive inner division not to be wished upon anyone... Without any kind of catharsis and without processing the grief, it's quite painful...
An intense film with a slowness that never becomes exasperating.. Flashes of Michelangelo Antonioni are felt sporadically here and there in a work that deserves to be experienced and seen.. Why must these gems always be niche films or for festival enthusiasts only? Hurry to experience this emotion! It's within your reach and currently showing. Look for the theater screening "THE PLEASURE AND LOVE" by N.Bilge Ceylan: a delight for the eyes, a healthy ecology for the mind and a pleasant massage for all the senses....
Enjoy the movie! smiles from unknown distances!! Yours, Rainer!!!
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