The Palme d’Or winner of Cannes 2014, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s ('The Wild Pear Tree') 'Winter Sleep' is set in the hilly landscape of Cappadocia in Central Anatolia, where the local celebrity, a former actor Aydin (Haluk Bilginer), owns a small hotel cut into the hillside.
It’s now winter and the off-season. Aydin runs the hotel with his younger wife Nihal (Melisa Sözen), writes a column for the local newspaper, and is playing with the idea of producing a book on Turkish theatre. He has also inherited local properties from his father, but leaves the business of rent collection to his agent. When a local boy, resentful of his father’s humiliation at the hands of the agent, throws a stone at a jeep whilst Aydin and his agent are driving in it, Aydin ducks out of any responsibility or involvement.
As the film progresses, the cocoon in which the self-satisfied and insular man has wrapped himself is gradually unravelled . In a series of magnificent set pieces, the film takes a close look at Aydin's interactions with his wife, his recently divorced sister, and the family of the stone-throwing boy, as Aydin is finally brought face-to-face with who and what he truly is.
★★★★ "Sharply observed tragicomedy" - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
★★★★ "Reconfirms Ceylan as a film-maker at the peak of his powers – singular, insightful, compassionate" - Mark Kermode, The Observer
★★★★★ - Nigel Andrews, Financial Times
15
197 minutes
2014
European, Drama, Award Winners
Turkey
Turkish
English
New Wave Films