A gaunt affair

Uzak won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year, Best Film at the Istanbul Film Festival and was winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Chicago Film Festival. It is surely overpraised.

The tale follows grim, middle-aged photographer Mahmut (Muzaffer Ozdemir) as he struggles to cope with a new flatmate, his younger cousin Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak), who has travelled to Istanbul to find manual work.

Yusuf is smelly and childish; unable to cope with adult life at all, he just smokes and sweats it out in a badly patterned jumper. Both men suffer from what the Irish poet Paul Durcan described as " womanhunger" - and this is where the film is best, as it follows their gaze towards several women, none of whom they approach or connect with.

Mahmut has lost his wife, whom he seems to still love, to a new man, and in one scene locks himself in the loo to get some privacy for a telephone conversation with her. He sits and holds his head stiff in his hands, concentrating, and yet cannot find the words - any words - to draw her back.

There is plenty to admire here, but the movie is a gaunt affair, with something ruinously washed-out about it.

Uzak (Distant)
Cert: 15