Drawers

Deniz is taken to hospital. For as long as she is there she cannot move and has to look back. The narrative moves between the present and the past: her relations with her family, the distance between her and her mother, an event never spoken of and things she has kept hidden for years open in turn. Meanwhile there are other people around her in the hospital, and their stories hold a mirror to her own condition. Mehmet Binay directs. Ece Dizdar plays Deniz; Taner Birsel, Tilbe Saran and Nilüfer Açıkalın are in the cast. The title describes the structure directly: the narrative is built of sections that open like closed drawers, and each brings something out. The matter it works at is what goes unspoken inside a family, and the film does not tie it to a resolution. The cast is drawn from actors with a theatre background in Turkey and the weight of the film is in the playing. It is a small independent production and was shown in a limited number of cinemas. Its limit is structure; as the shifts in time grow more frequent the viewer can lose the context. The hospital setting is kept deliberately narrow; the narrative builds a closedness physically as well. Who it is for: viewers who like Turkish independent drama and films centred on acting. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the structure loose, and the narrative emotionally heavy.