Commitment Hasan

A film set in rural Turkey. Hasan is a farmer. He grows tomatoes and his land is good. There is a problem. An electricity pylon is to be put through the middle of his field. The project is approved. It has been surveyed and staked. Hasan does not want it. He looks for a way out. At the same time there is another matter. He and his wife are to go on the pilgrimage. They have registered and the date is near. There is a condition for the pilgrimage: to be at peace with everyone. No debts to another person may remain. From there the film runs the two lines together. Hasan works to stop the pylon. He goes to the headman, to the council, and looks for connections. He finds a way. The pylon could be moved onto his neighbour's field. That needs a signature. He is on bad terms with the neighbour. There was a matter years ago. The man will not sign. Hasan turns to other means. Pressure, a threat and a lie. At the same time his list of people to settle with grows. There are problems inside his own family too. A question of land with his brother, and a subject with his wife not discussed for years. What the narrative is interested in is not faith but accounts: its idea is that wanting to go on the pilgrimage and continuing to take what is not his run at the same time, and that he sees no contradiction between them. The narrative does not judge Hasan. He is not ill-intentioned; he has his own idea of what is right. The question of land carries the whole film. Who deserves what, and how much anyone has a right to. Semih Kaplanoğlu's method is evident. Long takes, natural light, little music, and the sounds of the country. He had made a trilogy earlier and this film shares its world. The images are agricultural. Greenhouses, irrigation, harvest and soil; the narrative shows the work in detail. The running time is long; close to two and a half hours. The film was Turkey's Oscar submission that year. Semih Kaplanoğlu directed. Umut Karadağ, Filiz Bozok, Gökhan Azlağ and Ali Rıza Şahin are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes slow cinema and morally difficult characters. Who it is not for: anyone looking for pace; the narrative is long, the tempo very slow, and the plot turns on a single matter.