User reviews

Reading some of the other reviews of this film, i was reminded of both good and not so good aspects of it. But overall, i have to say it is one of the better films i have seen from any number of genres or countries recently. More than anything else, it avoided many of the typical traps of more recent international cinema, like taking nice pictures of landscapes or being 'hip', 'fun' or imitating American films like pulp fiction. The film is unique in many ways. For one thing, it is a film about relationships in which sex plays no role (unusual, especially for foreign films). It is also a film about two men's relationship to each other (also unusual - not a 'buddy film', no homosexual tension, no ego/phallic competition). It uses little dialogue, but communicates a tremendous amount. It is a simple story, yet full of complex details which are easily understood by any human being and universal in their relevance. I did not find the film dark or depressing (everything would seem this way if you watch Hollywood happy ending films all the time), but rather a true reflection of human emotions. For instance, in the scene where Mahmut realizes his cousin is gone is you see both his feeling of relief, that the cousin is gone and yet regret, that he pushed him away. Who has not felt such ambivalence - when losing a friend or lover, or in some other situation? It's rare to get these kinds of real human emotions displayed on film in a non-cliché way. As far as culture is concerned, or this being a Turkish film, i feel it strikes the very difficult balance between being a 'Turkish' film - about realities which more apply to that place (the greater struggle to make it in a Turkish city versus a European one; the greater contrast between country and city), and a universal, human story which didn't necessarily have to be set in Turkey. In this day and age where people around the world are consuming culture and fetishizing it, this film does not try to entice us as 'Turkish', nor does it try to communicate it as a 'harsh reality', or 'that's how Turkey/Istanbul IS'. And yet the cultural elements are there. I think the comparison to 'lost in translation' that somebody made is quite good. Everyone, at least in the US, was raving about that film. I personally thought it was mediocre at best. It was well put by someone as a vague story which supposedly was supposed to deal with 'disorientation' that happens to people living or traveling overseas. Even if the film was supposed to be humorous, the characters and their motivations or crises were never clear (even for a 'lighter' film or comedy, this is necessary). And i found myself being treated to a typically 'orientalist' story of the alienated Amerian overseas. Going back to 'Distant', as for the idea that this is bad acting, or too slow, or has no plot, I'm sorry but people who say this know nothing about film making and maybe nothing about being human, no offense. You do not have to be a film aficionado or cultural connoisseur to appreciate this film. This film will be two hours of your time well spent!

You discover solitariness, but not quite...

Measured and majestic in its observation

Ceylan has a camera in-built in his brain masterfully capturing moods against raw landscapes just as much as dark TV lit rooms, a foray into the chill of the heart….

It moves leisurely, yes, but never do you take your eyes off the screen or want to fast forward..

This film could so easily have been dark and forgetful, or grinding art-house, instead it is is uplifted by the incandescent sense of cinema in it — the grace and fluidity with which relationships play out, their cinematic element meant to pleasure our sensibilities against vast canvases..

Ceylan is a serious player today, with Winter Sleep winning the Palme d'Or in 2014 at Cannes…...this 2002 work shows why….

Uzak (2002), a Turkish film shown in the U.S. as "Distant,"

was directed, produced, written, and filmed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

This movie is a gritty and somber version of the clash between a "city mouse," Mahmut, played by Muzaffer Özdemir, and a "country mouse," Yusuf, played by Emin Toprak.

Both men are superb actors, and the plot allows them to demonstrate their acting skill. (Tragically, Emin Toprak died in an automobile accident shortly after the movie was completed.)

In most country cousin/city cousin tales, the contrast between rural and urban life styles is portrayed in a humorous fashion. In this film, there's little humor or even warmth. Both men have lost touch with human society. Mahmut 's work as a commercial photographer for a tile company gives him no satisfaction. He has divorced a woman he clearly still loves, and has no satisfying human relationships.

Mahmut has lost his job because of a factory closing in his small town, and doesn't have the skills or the energy to find work in the city. His human interactions are primarily confined to silent observations of the other people who cross his path. He's clearly a warm and caring person, but can't express these qualities in an urban environment.

The cousins don't relate well to the world, and they don't relate well to each other. Neither makes an effort to act in a way that would provide an opportunity for bonding or closeness.

In a sense, this film portrays an opportunity wasted.

Conceivably, each cousin could have provided at least part of what was lacking in the other's life. Instead, they steer parallel unhappy courses. The two men are distant throughout, which is a situation suggested by the film's title.

One of my friends mentioned the masterful way in which Ceylan builds detail upon detail. These details ultimately tell us more about the characters than we might have learned by simple exposition.

Uzak was shown as part of the Rochester Labor Film series. It's not a "labor film" in the traditional sense of that genre. It is a labor film because it demonstrates the harmful effects of unsatisfying work (Mahmut) and unemployment (Yusuf).

This is a quiet, absorbing, dark film. Although it doesn't make for happy viewing, I walked out of the theater realizing that I had seen a truly creative and important movie. This film is worth finding and seeing!

It's probably a year since I saw Uzak, but it has left strong memories of the two main characters, jaded photographer Mahmut and his naive cousin from the village Yusuf.

It's a long film with very little dialogue and a quite limited plot. This has evidently annoyed a fair few viewers. But the film constructs such a painfully believable portrait of Mahmut and Yusuf that there's just as much emotional tension as in the paciest thriller.

Just to be clear, there's no padding in this film -- in the long pauses where no one speaks there as much happening in the characters' emotions (and in yours, watching them) as you could bear. Go to see it awake and alert, and you'll be gripped rather than anaesthetised.

Uzak rings true in so many ways, and that sincerity is probably its greatest accomplishment. People don't grapple with events and problems, so much as with each other. In fact, in the whole film, there's probably not one point where the main characters (Mahmut, Yusuf and Mahmut's ex-wife Nazan) are not opposed.

Much of it is true the world over: country cousin Yusuf's perhaps wilfully naive expectation that a job on a ship will drop into his lap; Mahmut's urbanised cynicism and unwillingness to sympathise with Yusuf.

Other truths are more-specific to Turkey: Yusuf's incomprehension that Mahmut might be tolerating his stay with gritted teeth; Yusuf veering between macho ambition and wide-eyed awkwardness when he tries to get to know a woman.

Uzak is undoubtedly a pretty bleak film, and one Ceylan's strengths is not to beat us over the head with the themes he explores. For me at least, I believed entirely in the behaviour of his characters. All the little failed attempts to connect and petty cruelties ring so true. And yet I didn't leave with a message that "The world is like that", but instead I got "This is how we sometimes treat each other."

Distant is the story of two alienated people and their intercrossed lives that end up illustrating something about the fate of mankind in a downsizing world. The basic premise is that of a country bumpkin, Yusuf, with whose arrival at his cousin Mahmut's house begins a dance of discomfiture between the two men who have become distanced from their inner selves each in a separate way. Yusuf's removal from his feeding grounds is not enough to cast a pall over his mood, but his naïve, insecure optimism is quick to turn him into a permanent cripple in the frigid atmosphere of Istanbul when it is denied all nourishment from Mahmut whose sophistication is a casebook recipe for alienation. Mahmut is a photographer who has labored hard to make it in the big city and by Yusuf's arrival completely turned himself over to his profession.

The women in Mahmut's life are transits, too, in one way or another: his ex-wife, now married again, has come to terms with the fact that she was left infertile by an abortion, which still vexes Mahmut's conscience, and now she and her new husband have decided to move to a new country, possibly never to return. His mother is ill and dying, but Mahmut puts off going to see her in the hospital until three quarters into the movie when a surgery has left her wailing with pain and bemoaning her fate like almost every other character in this picture. The motif of ailing mothers is one of the crucial ties between the cousins, for Yusuf has one too. In contrast to Mahmut's neglectful attitude, the very first thing Yusuf does in Istanbul is to call his own mother. Nonetheless, neither man may hope to effect much change in the women from whom they are separated by physical or emotional distance. Not only can they relate to the relationships in their lives, but also neither man can form a new relationship throughout the movie, with Yusuf experiencing repeated rejections from one employer after another and both men never mustering the courage to formalize a relationship with the attractive women who pass through their lives. Both transits, the cousins find that their lives are peopled by the relationships of most transitory kind.

Like a symphony, the film plays around with the various meanings of its title in a virtuoso directorial performance by NB Ceylan, who has made a career out of enshrining Tarkovsky into the landscape of Turkish cinema. The influence of Tarkovsky here is felt not only in Mahmut's private screenings of Solaris, and the movie's decidedly meticulous cinematography, but also in the mysterious deployment of free indirect imagery (imagery of a character's thoughts), and a mystical signpost at the end of the movie that recalls Tarkovsky's Nostalghia. Interestingly, Distant won three Palme D'Ors at the Cannes film festival, where it was judged by no other than Steven Soderberg who has remade Solaris, that seminal masterpiece of Tarkovsky.

Unlike Tarkovsky and even Soderberg, however, Ceylan ends his film at a note that is nonetheless captivating for having been obvious for a very long time. The cousins drive each other to the brink and finally, disillusioned, Yusuf moves out and disappears from Mahmut's life. The story unfolds like a classic parable with readily identifiable and human elements that offset its "alien" features, such as its Turkish setting, and makes this film a universal and poignant tale of lives held at a devastating distance.

My interpretation is that the term 'distant' is used in the sense of the opposite of 'warm'; people who are not warm toward others. The film reminds me of the teachings of the Dalai Lama in 'The Art of Happiness' where his main point is that the key to happiness is connecting with others. Not only are the characters in the film insular, but they are also humorless, charmless, shy, quiet and unfriendly. These characteristics appear to prevent them, amongst other things, from forming and enjoying relationships and being able to talk about and deal with their problems. And as a result they are terribly unhappy. I see it as a strong vindication of the Dalai Lama's teaching (I'm not a Buddist by the way). If you are one of the people who thinks that their behavior is a natural response to living in a large city then I think you may be right but I recommend the Dalai Lama's book. City life need not be like this.

I can see why some people found it boring - it does drag a bit in places and the characters are not particularly likable. And it does contrast to Lost In Translation where the insular characters are much more likable and do connect with one another even though they don't connect with people generally.

People must learn to watch what is up there on the screen. This is a great film that is based on a slow, careful gathering of details which serve to establish the personalities of these two men. The passivity of Yusuf (Emin Toprak), the country cousin, is well described by his fear of talking to women. He has at least three chances to start a conversation with a young woman and loses all of them. He has many decades of bachelorhood ahead of him, and maybe unemployment as well.

Mahmut is a different case. He got out of the small town by working very hard (we imagine), and his resentment of slackers like Yusuf is palpable (he leaves crumbs on the expensive carpet--the slob!). We are shown a group of friends talking about Tarkovsky among other things, and we note that Mahmut feels regret--but only slight regret--that his work has become commercial over the years. The gulf between the cousins just gets wider and wider. The mouse trap theme is wonderfully vivid, it brings out the compassion and confusion of Yusuf, and the cold-blooded problem solving of Mahmut.

I was reminded of two classic films of men driving each other nuts: Les cousins by Chabrol (the rich boy with Hitlerian pretensions played by Brialy is always in my mind) and Kiss of the Spider Woman (William Hurt can't figure out why everybody's so mean). Nuri Bilge Ceylan takes his place among the dozen important directors now active. I just hope that in future he will come to rely on collaborators, instead of directing, writing and shooting his films himself.

I am still transfixed... I've liked it, enough to stay with it . Of course it became more and more to have moments of vigorous interface... But from the start or within a few moments it became the décor, the coloring, patterns in fabrics here and there, the wall décor however stark, the satisfying sound of any door closings, the whole of the living, sleeping quarters had me saying "I will hire some Turkish interior decorator if ever....". Ad all the time who knew? it was the very director's own home. Loved it. Why am I unable to shut off my dvd with the scene and that music for over an hour, getting on to two hours? The story. This is a 'must see'.

This is a film about loneliness and how the distance – physical and emotional -- between people tends to stultify relationships.

The narrative is simple to the point of banality: a young man Yusuf (Emin Toprak), from a rural village, arrives in Istanbul to stay with his older and successful cousin Mahmut (Muzaffer Ozdemir); Yusuf wants work in the big city. After trying for a few weeks to find work without any success, the strain of having Yusuf living with him is too much for Mahmut. They quarrel – nothing physical, just verbal. Eventually, Yusuf goes, leaving Mahmut alone again. End of story...

Except for the fact that the performance of the two men as relatives is one of the best on film. Much is said visually; dialog is used to bring out disagreement, distrust, hostility, and insecurity that exist within and between the two men.

There are many visual gems in this film. For example, while searching for work, young Yusuf, needing a relationship, tries in vain to gain the attention of various young women around the city. The look on his face, as he is thwarted every time, says it all.

Or, wanting a cigarette, Yusuf opens the door to the balcony of Mahmut's apartment and lights up in the frigid December air, leaving the door open; Mahmut, eventually gets up from his work desk, walks to the door (all glass) and the cousins just look at each other for what seems way too long a time. Then Mahmut closes the door, leaving Yusuf out in the cold. The metaphor is complete.

Or, Mahmut cleaning up after Yusuf, grudgingly and with increasing anger; and all the while, Yusuf wastes his time chasing skirts instead of looking seriously for work, and spends Mahmut's money on a toy for a nephew… Yusuf is emotional, untidy, impulsive, and vulnerable. Mahmut is rational, logical, self-confident and a demanding control freak: the right-brain, left-brain dichotomy beautifully played out by two actors who say more with a look, a gesture, a frown than any words can convey.

But, Mahmut is not completely emotionless: he still loves his ex-wife who tells him that she's off to Canada with her husband-to-be. Mahmut affects a distant and confident friendship with his ex, and makes sure that she is okay about going. He wishes her well. He says goodbye. He leaves the coffee shop where they were talking. Later when she calls to say a last goodbye, on the way to the airport, Mahmut goes there and secretly watches as she leaves. The poignancy of the emotion on his face, as she disappears through a door, is worth the wait.

All in all, this is a standout piece of work by the two main actors and the director, Nuri Ceylan. Some might argue that the pace is too slow; but life goes slowly for much of the time, especially for those who are alone. The camera work is relatively simple also: choose the scene, set up the camera and lighting, and let the actors move across the scene, enter the scene and leave the scene, all the while keeping the camera still. There were a few panning shots, some high-angle tracking shots, a few rural scenes – but much of the film is shown as though on a stage with a fixed camera and a wide angle lens. Except for TV and radio music within the story, there is no music sound track. And, there are those many long silences as the two men sit and watch TV together and/or engage in very limited conversation.

I saw this movie on TV so I was amused to see that, on a few occasions, I was watching TV as they were watching TV also. The silence in the movie matched the silence in my house (I was awake, all others in bed); my chair and position matched that of Mahmut's as he watched TV. Quite eerie, giving me a sense of almost 'being there' with him… And, I guess I was, in a sense.

I'll say no more, because I want you to savor the other scenes that I haven't described. It's not a movie for everybody, for sure. More than any movie I've seen, it shows just how much we die when we are all alone – just as we are all alone when we die. Mahmut's face, as it fades to black in the final scene, will stay with me for a long, long time...

Highly recommended for serious movie buffs.

It has taken me about a year now after seeing this film to write about it. Lord knows I have wanted to, after witnessing it I knew I saw something I hadn't seen before but wasn't sure why. Now after reflecting for quite some time I know, it's these characters that even now I still can't stop thinking about.

Distant briefly and slowly tells the story of a relative (Yusuf) who comes from the rurals to live briefly with a well off to do photographer (Mahmut) in the city in hopes to find employment. However it becomes clear that after Yusuf hypothesizes the idea of being a sailor and his employment prospects dim, that he's really searching for something else, some sort of purpose in his life.

Through all this soul searching we are taken through seasonal surroundings that are filmed exquisitely. The context in which they happen makes the scenes more powerful in 2 particular ones when a girl Yusuf has been following suddenly meets up with her significant other, and the look of Yusuf's face as he looks into a basket of fish and the shot and light that reflects off his tortured face. That scene in itself has to be one of the most gorgeously filmed pieces I have witness in I don't know how long.

In the end Mahmut has his own demons too, but ends up confronting his relative that he is not really trying to find a job and is forced to ask him to leave, in a scene that is very simple but has the feeling of true heartbreak.

What the viewer is left with is lots of reflecting and pondering for these 2 people who everyone can see a piece of themselves in. You should not be put off by the pace of this film it is truly worth every single breathtaking second.

Rating 10 out of 10.

I first have to say that it is beautifully shot with some truly excellent cinematography. The sound design is quite interesting too, with sounds that would normally be pushed right to the back taking centre stage as the visuals do their work. I thought the performances of the two main characters were excellent but I felt it lacked a bit of direction. The narrative tended to drift along without really finding anything of any substance to bring it to life. Still, I felt it was a worthy effort and worth a look.

SteelMonster's verdict: RECOMMENDED

My score: 6.7/10

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

'Distant' is definitely one of the best Turkish movies ever been shot and is one of the best minimalistic movie in cinema history.Don't mix it up with high budget Hollywood movies this movie just hit the bullseye in every minimalistic view.People who liked Distant very much should see director's other movies like 'Clouds of May' and 'Kasaba' which are sequels to Distant somehow.After I watch Distant with my friend we thought about life,being 'man', being 'human',being...Maybe we are just like those characters and don't realize it because we're in the events and don't have the chance to look into mirror sometimes.A critical turn for Turkish cinema.Definite classic.Just see and think about it. 10/10

I am very thankful that the small college town of Abingdon, Va.- near Bristol, TN. and home of the famous Barter Theatre where Gregory Peck once acted- managed to get an art film festival togather and show this film there. Abingdon is two and a hour hours from where I live, but the trip was worth it in every sense of the word. UZAK/DISTANT is an amazing, brilliant, jarring, emotional, captivating film. As a Turkish-American, this film was not only a testimony as to what life in Turkey is like; but on a larger scale it tells the world of what it is like to be Turkish whether one lives in Istanbul, Berlin, Montreal, New York, or Omaha. It may be two hours in length as opposed to five minutes, but this is effectively our Bob Marley song. There are so many wonderful scenes in this film. It is very difficult to choose just a random few. But, for me, one telling scene takes place in a Beyoglu (downtown Istanbul) cinema. The title character, played by Mehmet Emin Toprak who sadly died in a car accident shortly after this film's completion, follows a very attractive young woman down a staircase to the cinema's main auditorium. She goes into see "Vanilla Sky." As the image of Tom Cruise is reflected from a glass, we sense that Turkish men are competing with Tom Cruise for their own women's affections even though Tom Cruise is nowhere to found in Beyoglu. The scenes shot across the Bosphorous shores are also quite revealing as they symbolize the beauty, yet desperate empty gulfs, which are a painful fact of life in Turkey. In this film, the gulf separates lovers and families. A simple, empty packet of Samsun (Turkish brand) cigarettes and a dying mouse jump off the screen the way seagulls did in the 1982 Serif Goren-Yilmaz Guney film "Yol." Many of Guney's films, including "Yol," "Suru- the Herd" (1978- completed by Zeki Okten) and "Baba-The Father" (1971) have been considered by many to be the best Turkish films ever made. Without Guney's sometimes overblown social-political anger (especially in his last film, the 1983 prison drama "Duvar-The Wall"), "Distance" captures the essence of Turkish life quite remarkably. This is a crowning achievement for a director who in my view can already be proclaimed as the Turkish equivalent to directors like Tarkovsky, Bresson, and Ozu. I can't wait to see his other films!

Hysterically painful; perhaps the kind of movie Chekhov would have made had he made movies. What's really funny is that the two cousins have so very much in common (many descriptions of their relationship on this site are dead wrong).

What's really funny and uncomfortable about these characters is that they just can't bring themselves to talk to each other - or anyone else! It's horrible. If you've ever been too shy, worried, self-involved, or just plain scared to talk to someone (and who hasn't?) you'll definitely see yourself in this film. And it won't be pretty.

It holds a mirror up to the audience and says, "If you don't like what you see... change it".

I don't know how fine the line is between "quietly beautiful" and "inert" is, but this movie raises the question. Neither of the characters is terribly appealing, and the action is so slim that it would be hard to write a spoiler if you wanted to. OTOH, the movie does invoke the loneliness of urban life well. It does consistently hold your attention, but I can't say it's affecting. I doubt it's memorable, but who knows? Sometimes such movies stick in the mind when others with more meat disappear from memory. It is certainly worth watching if you're a sucker like I am for art house films set in faraway places with an air of displacement.

Like all good art, this movie could mean different things to different people. To me it means that failing to open your hart to the others could rob you of happiness and leave you with an empty live. The convenience of the selfishness is like the junk food: it feels good, but eventually could make you sick.

Almost everything I see in the US is a commercial mass production of action garbage, shallow dramas, and stupid comedies, and this sensitive, deep and poetic movie really touched me. Thank you, Nuri Bilge Ceylan (and all the other in the cast)!

Ivan Yanachkov

"Distant" is a slice-of-Turkish-life flick which follows the mundane activities of two adult male cousins; one a photographer and the other an unemployed underachiever. There's little doubt that auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a work in progress with considerable talent. However, this little foreign minimalistic arty dramady is so full of empty filler and so devoid of story or anything engaging or provocative that it will likely appeal to only the most avid devotees of cinema and mainstream audiences should look elsewhere. I personally grew quickly bored with the slow pace of the film and found myself fast-forwarding through the empty spaces - and there are many - between dialogue, plot development, and denouement. "Distant" is a very nicely done bit of esoterica. (B-)

so, i won't disagree with the critics but I really was not all that moved by this movie. i was a little hesitant to rent it,as I am going through some of the same things the protagonist is supposed to be experiencing. yet, i did rent it thinking that I might experience some catharsis, or at the least understand that I am not alone. while i understood the protagonist's irritation with his careless cousin, I didn't feel his internal struggle with isolation as much as I would have liked. i felt that much more emphasis was placed on his disruptive cousin overstaying his welcome. it is a beautifully filmed movie, and I did really appreciate the use of silence to bring out the feeling of isolation.

For those who are like me and are used to watch and enjoy high budget Hollywood films, on huge screens with a surround audio, this film seems to be so distant. However it surprised me how close can it be to any human while I watch it. It is so natural that you feel like nobody wrote a scenario or nobody directed it. You are the director and you are writing the scenario while you watch it. For me, the time I spend on watching a film is the only time which I go to another world. This film is the first sample for me which shows that it is not always a must to watch millions of dollars of budgeted films, surround audio capabilities to go to another world. This films sends you to another world (or maybe makes you return back to yourself) without millions of dollars of budget, or technical capabilities. I felt like that I'm reading L'etranger from Camus.

It is a film that is intended to be made by writing simple metaphors rather than narration. I'm not saying bad, but rather than the subject integrity, a fiction was created by writing subtexts. Maybe some good metaphors I did not understand, but most of them are simple and predictable. In addition, Mehmet Emin Ceylan's absence is felt in the film.

⭐ 100/75

There seem to be many fans of this movie here, but I found it boring, slow, meandering, and pointless. And I watch and enjoy plenty of art-house and independent films, so I wasn't expecting an action movie. I didn't sympathize with either character. The guy from the countryside was a bad guest and didn't seem to be trying very hard to find a job, and his relative in Istanbul was humorless and closed off emotionally.

In an interview on the DVD, the director says that the movie is about a common situation in Turkey - the person leaving in the countryside because there are no jobs and coming to Istanbul and staying with relatives while trying to find work. That in itself is interesting, but the movie wasn't.