The tale has a deceptive, emotional complexity that builds to a surprisingly heartrending impact.
Comment
09/08/05
Distant (2004)
89
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:44
Fresh:39
Rotten:5
Average Rating:7.8/10
Consensus: Hauntingly beautiful, Distant communicates volumes with its almost pervasive silence.
Theatrical Release:Mar 12, 2004 Limited
Synopsis: Nuri Bilge Ceylan's DISTANT chronicles the numbing loneliness, longing, and isolation in the lives of two men who are consumed by their own problems. Istanbul photographer Mahmut (Muzaffer Ozdemir)... [More]
Starring: Muzaffer Ozdemir, Mehmet Emin Toprak, Zuhal Gencer Erkaya, Nazan Kirilmis
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
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Reviews for Distant
Films that insist on long periods of nothingness need to earn those periods.
05/21/04
Few recent films have been so accomplished in capturing the way people drift through their lives, unable to communicate their emotions and feelings.
05/18/04
Actually lives up to its title; it's a muted, uninvolving film.
01/09/04
The cumulative force of so many quiet, unforced little moments add up, and it wasn’t until a good hour after I’d seen the film that it really took hold of me.
05/21/04
The film takes place in Turkey, but its dynamic could be transplanted anywhere -- maybe to our own families.
04/09/04
Top CriticA Chekhovian tale of major artistic power.
04/08/04
Top CriticUnassuming, acutely observant drama.
03/11/04
The question for many viewers will be whether this skillful exposition of urban alienation offers sufficient new insight...to justify a bleak and utterly joyless two hours.
04/29/04
There is no simple sense of uplift in Distant. But there is an exhilaration to revealing the human condition, and Ceylan is ever on the lookout.
05/14/04
This is a movie that dares to ask a powerful question: What does it mean to be really alone? How does it look?
05/14/04
Top CriticIt's bleak, yes, but it's beautiful in equal measure.
10/01/04
This precisely paced, sensitively performed drama speaks volumes about the growing distance that modern urban living is putting between people who would otherwise have so much in common.
05/14/04
Ceylan, who also served as cinematographer, frames the affecting, unstudied performances in gorgeously chosen shots and nonevents that sometimes teeter on the edge of comedy before knocking us breathless with their emotional power.
03/10/04
Top CriticSmart, observant and sad.
10/01/03
Once you downshift to the film's dreamy rhythms, this multiple prize-winner at Cannes and entry in the 2003 New York Film Festival offers modest rewards.
12/20/03
He'd love to mimic Antonioni and Ozu, but Ceylan still has much to learn about crafting quiet scenes
03/26/05
A doleful Turkish masterpiece.
03/25/04
Top CriticLong on melancholy and short on dramatic texture.
05/22/03
Top CriticClick to read the article
07/21/05
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