Winter Sleep offers incentive to hibernate

    1 of 2 2 of 2

      Starring Haluk Bilginer. In Turkish, with English subtitles. Rated PG.

      Set in a desolate, almost Tolkien-esque part of central Turkey, Winter Sleep happens mostly at a struggling hotel that, like most of its surrounding landscape, seems carved out of stone, ice, and history itself.

      Proprietor Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) is an urbane writer and theatre veteran who has left Istanbul for a life of contemplative solitude, and sporadic productivity. He sometimes forgets that he’s not really alone. His young wife (Melisa Sözen) is chafing at their rugged existence and, increasingly, at his preening self-regard. And his middle-aged sister (Demet Akbag) has decamped there for a pending divorce.

      This somewhat chilly family unit is there because Aydin, who’s around 60, has inherited the hotel and other properties from his late father, who worked himself up from nothing. Consequently, he is landlord to renters around town, including a hard-drinking ne’er-do-well (Nejat Isler) who hasn’t paid in months. It’s left to the man’s sometimes obsequious brother (Serhat Mustafa Kiliç) to fix things, inadequately.

      Aydin figures he’s above such matters and has a local roustabout (Ayberk Pekcan) maintain his properties, perhaps with a heavy hand. We rarely see what happens behind the scenes, although much is talked about after various events. In fact, writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, known for such potent efforts as Distant and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, shows a similarly detached hand.

      The setup is decidedly Chekhovian (there’s even a “thanks to Chekhov” in the credits), and many intriguing ideas are hinted at—regarding class, gender, religion, and the arts in modern Turkey—but there’s little of the Russian playwright’s tonal variety here. Almost every scene involves two or three people beginning a discussion amiably and then subtly turning on each other, only to begin yet another round of repetitive argument—thus explaining the beautifully shot movie’s unmerited 196 minutes.

      In the end, all this language sounds like it’s coming from one source, mirroring Aydin’s solipsism. And illogical plot turns—such as the sudden and unmentioned disappearance of his sister—suggest that the filmmaker is more interested in making speeches than in mounting plausible drama. The title, disappointingly, proves a little too honest.

      Comments