“The power of silence was once so great in the human face that all external happenings were absorbed in this silence. The resources of the world were thereby as it were unspent and unexhausted.”


Max Picard (from World of Silence)


Yusuf travels to Istanbul after being laid off from his factory job in search of work. His plan is to stay with Mahmut, a relative who used to live in his village who has since become an accomplished photographer, still clinging to a fading dream of following in Tarkovsky’s footsteps. Yusuf’s inability to find a job in Turkey’s depressed economic climate gives him enough free time to experience urban life for the first time, and he comes face to face with the unattainable dreams of the big city while aimlessly stalking a woman who lives on Mahmut’s street. Yusuf’s desire to travel and see the world through a job on the ships plays well against Mahmut’s “been there, done that” resignation. It is a tale as simple as the city mouse and the country mouse, but the forced interaction between Mahmut and Yussuf brings to light the hidden tensions and personal difficulties that lead Distant to its unexpected conclusion.


In many ways, Distant is a travelogue of the human spirit through economic hardship. Ceylan doesn’t really tell an explicit “story” through the film, but rather lets us linger on key emotional landmarks of its characters, pitting our need for resolution against our need for understanding. He seems determined to force us into submission to his thoughtful pace, in the tradition of Tarkovsky patiently allowing us to identify the purpose of the spaces he creates. But Ceylan also brings to Distant a controlling subjectivity that Tarkovsky often seemed to deny the cool sterility of his images. In the evolving tradition of Sokurov, Ceylan materializes intriguing personal moments through attention to the physical actions of his actors. His approach to drama could be construed as minimalist, as the gentle striking of a few chosen notes over the course of time. But it would be better to think of Distant in terms of the arousing singularity of something like Gorecki’s Third Symphony. In this famous symphony, Gorecki allows dichotomous elements of tone and pattern to react to each other in a fluid arc. Though intentionally simplistic, it is by no means minimalist. Its textures and themes, though stark, draw their power from overwhelming the narrow channels they follow. This is a perfect analogy to the interaction between Mahmut and Yusuf. Minimalism often doesn’t intend to take us anywhere, but rather seeks to expose us to a repeating (or non-repeating) theme over time through an intentionally limited medium. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with this approach to storytelling. Sokurov’s Mother and Son, and perhaps even Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia to a lesser extent, are great examples of how well this can work. But Distant weaves its social oppositions carefully, taking us to realization at the pace that it genuinely occurs in life. Its simplicity is an invitation to participate in its elaborate social point that occurs within its balanced visual form.


At times we are simply carried along aurally by specific sounds in the same way Bresson carries us along visually by a specific series of close-ups. This use of sound is often matched with another tendency of Ceylan that steps beyond the intentioned passivity of Tarkovsky. Almost reminiscent of a few of Maya Deren’s early shorts, Ceylan will take a lengthy scene with little or no dialogue and break it up by use of turning lights on and off in a proportioned rhythm or playing with our perception of the presence or absence of characters in the frame. A woman will seemingly appear on the street out of nowhere, or someone will slip behind a mirrored pillar that removes them momentarily from the frame.


In one telling scene, Mahmut and Yusuf sit watching the trolley car sequence from Stalker, in which the three trespassers are moving down the tracks, peering into the overly green trees and buffeted by the overly quiet wind of the Zone. All around them rings the metallic click of the tracks splitting the eerie silence with wave of diminishing noise. For several minutes Tarkovsky lets this foreboding sound fill the scene, keying us into the elemental abstractions of the Zone. It certainly is one of the few spots in Tarkovsky’s work where sound itself becomes a dominant element. In a smirking take on what most wouldn’t admit is a common experience of Tarkovsky, Mahmut watches this scene for a while before switching over to an adult film. It turns out that Mahmut’s plan was to bore Yusuf so much that he would leave the room, thus letting Mahmut watch his other “movie” in privacy. Ceylan seems lightheartedly aware of the lengths to which he forces his viewers to go.

Ultimately, this key Stalker scene in the film links Ceylan’s preoccupation with sound, rhythm, and time with the broader social context of the film. Distant is all about passage, transience. The final image of the film, inconclusive and unfinished, seems to point this direction.