Film review: Winter Sleep, a season of discontent

Winter Sleep
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

There is a moment of drama early on the in this Turkish film. A young boy throws a stone that breaks the window in the car of the main character Aydin.

That’s about the extent of drama in this three-hour film, which won the Palme d'Ór at Cannes. Most of the events that follow are ripples from this action with the boy’s motivation revealing deep personal, social and political scars in both the community and wider Turkish society.

The film, which is set in Anatolia, centres on Aydin, a retired actor who has inherited a number of properties including a small hotel. He lives with his new younger wife Nihal and his recently divorced sister Necla.

He also writes a column in a small local paper where he pompously sounds off on matters social, political and religious. He appears to be a benign, tolerant matriarch but he progressively reveals an autocratic arrogance that does not allow for other people's views.

He dominates the lives of all those around him with all the subtly of a mafia don. The film is a commentary on contemporary Turkish society as well as the examination of a dysfunctional rural community and the study of a failing marriage.

The film consists of a series of conversations between the various characters, the three principals as well as Aydin’s right hand man, one of his tenants and a local cleric. These conversations are wide ranging with dinner table talk morphing from the banal into philosophical conversations about guilt and forgiveness.

These conversations are never dull though as they increasingly reveal the true nature of the characters and we discover the psychological bruising that living with and working for Aydin inflicts on those around him.

At one point the young boy who threw the stone is forced to kiss Aydin’s hand as a sign of apology for his action. The boy faints out of fear, terror or repugnance and there is a sense Aydin would like everyone to kiss his hand in supplication.

There is also a great beauty in these conversations, which run on for many minutes at a time; there are a few moments of intensity but generally they are leisurely conversations filled with astuite observations, wry comments and subtle power plays.

There is a Shakespearian quality to the dialogue, which is rich in detail and brilliantly delivered with Haluk Bilginer (Aydin) a King Lear-like character, unable or unwilling to see his flaws.

Melisa Sozen as his unhappy wife battles with him, accusing him of being self centered but torn between wanting to leave and wanting him to understand his own faults; she is a brilliant embodiment of the women, who are torn between love and despair.

Demet Akbag as Aydin’s sister Necla also gives a remarkable performance as she tries to get her brother to see the errors of his pompous moralising both in his writings and his relationships.

Most of the conversations are set inside the dark, claustrophobic interiors of the Cappadocian houses, which are built into the local stone formations.

They are in a sense metaphors for the insular lives which the characters live, burrowed into the natural environment.

I don’t know what the original Turkish title of the film means but the idea of Winter Sleep, of emerging from hibernation into a new season is something of a description of the film in which the characters all have a chance of beginning a new life.