The Pomegranate

Four people are in a house and within half a day a reckoning takes place among them. Asuman tells fortunes; she has clients, an order she believes in, and looks at what happens through her own frame. The others believe different things. There is an event at the centre and each of them builds its justice by their own measure. Nobody goes to any official authority; each seeks their own justice. The narrative keeps these four in the same place and does not say who is right. Ümit Ünal writes and directs. Serra Yılmaz, İdil Fırat and İrem Altuğ are in the cast. The title rests on a figure: the seeds of a pomegranate are separate and inside the same skin; the director uses that directly as the film's idea. The structure is close to theatre: one setting, four characters and unbroken talk. The matter it works at is justice becoming personal; the question of what happens when everyone applies their own truth sits at the centre. Ümit Ünal is among the directors in Turkey working on low budgets with small casts, and this film belongs to that line. The acting carries the film; the performances run unbroken through long scenes. Its limit is form; the narrative is too explanatory and some lines stand like statements of thesis. Who it is for: viewers who like Turkish independent cinema and single setting talk films. Who it is not for: little happens, the register is didactic, and the pace is slow.