The Films of Cities

Esin Küçüktepepınar: A Mysterious Love Story Set in Istanbul

In the last weeks in Films of Cities section, I've given place to two different Berlin films selection.
This week, it is Istanbul movies' turn. Istanbul based cinema writer Esin Küçüktepepınar selected movies that reflect the soul of the city the best.

5 Films

Reha Erdem, A Ay, 1988 & Hayat Var (There is Life), 2008

Derviş Zaim, Tabutta Rövaşata (Somersault in a Coffin), 1996

Metin Erksan, Sevmek Zamanı (Time to Love), 1965

Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Uzak (Distant), 2002

Alain Robbe-Grillet, L’Immortelle (Immortal), 1963

If You Were to Choose One

If I were to pick in these weird days we are passing through or with my moodiness, I will say L'immortelle.

After all, it coincides really well with this period where the the soil underlying our feet is getting rather slippery.

French Nouveau Roman (New Novel) writer Alain-Robbe Grillet's imaginery approach to this mysterious love story is articulating our feelings of uncertainty, seeking and uncanny that we struggle within.

Representation of the City in Film

We follow a French Professor that comes to Istanbul for research, discovering the different facets of love.

But the Istanbul we bat around is not the familiar postcard landscapes.

On the contrary, the focus is not the Istanbul of the time, that started to be modernized but its history and historical places. And uses this focus to narrate the passionate and uncanny mood of love which we know for over centuries.

Istanbul is no more a setting, in some way, it is a character itself.

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