Apart from debasing relationships into meaningless Hallmark one-liners, Valentine’s Day also reaffirms, to scores of un-partnered “chumps”, they’re still on their seemingly endless search for love, and therefore happiness. But affection isn’t the only sentiment that spurns people into undergoing a quest. Set among the Anatolian countryside, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s new film shows how these inquiries can be affecting on both a physical and emotional level as a team of local law-enforcers, a doctor and a murder suspect search for his victim.
Ceylan’s protagonist’s hunt is fraught with difficulties; the suspect has been drinking and cannot remember the position, intensified by the penetrating darkness and the repeated blurring of the windscreen by the rain. The slowly developing narrative relies not on action, but like the arduousness of their expedition, unravels gradually. This mirrors the internal examination of each character, as they attempt to address particular uncertainties of their own lives. These pursuits are framed by both baron but mesmerising landscapes and deliciously applicable blink-and-you’ll-miss-it lines of dialogue. As the characters continue to seek the corpse, their personal journeys for solace take on greater meaning, eclipsing the now superficial one which the film is centred on. Reflected in the sheer difficulty of finding the body, the film is a melancholic allegory for the obstacles faced in achieving a state of relief and eventually peace.