A Turkish police drama directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylon that has a bunch of small-town policeman dragging two murder suspects around the Anatolian countryside looking for the spot where they buried a body. It's obvious that the film was made with care and taste, but beautifully composed shots and ponderous dialogue do not a satisfying movie make. Ceylon seems to be aiming for an Antonioni-style character study (deadly pacing, unanswered mysteries, a plot that disintegrates), but without Antonioni's passion and wildly arty eye for design. There are stunning moments (a sudden lightning strike that reveals a face in the darkness, a midnight dinner at a farm house, the chilling opening shot) but these moments seem arbitrarily placed in a film that is ultimately about isolation (again, Antonioni tackled this subject time and again with more invention and economy). Instead of a mystery that lingers in the mind, the film evaporates before our eyes.
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