THE DISENCHANTED -On those who have little left behind- / Murat Erşahin

2018.06.15
sinemamuzik.com

The name who breathes life on screen into this drama, adapted from Mehmet Eroğlu’s novel of the same name, is Selim Güneş, whom we know from his first film, ‘White as Snow’, from 2010! A lover of literature, Selim Güneş had made his first film, the one that made his name, starting from Sabahattin Ali’s story ‘Ayran’.

Dealing with how the members of a generation that fought for years to make the world liveable, endured torture and suffered pain, became unable to live their own lives any longer, Eroğlu’s book ‘The Disenchanted’ depicts the drama of this revolutionary generation, which shouldered the pain not only of its own country but of the world. One day these people realise that there are very few ‘human beings’ beside them, and that the world is no longer a place to live for them. Living with the ghosts of the past, they know there is no future, that only a cold and absolute death awaits them!

It is with precisely this truth and similar feelings that Kuzey’s story should be watched! Kuzey has taken refuge with his comrade Sami in a town on the Aegean. They run a small hotel that few people stop by. The hotel is quiet too, just like them! Kuzey is merely waiting for the death hiding nearby; Sami, for his part, keeps watch over his closest friend. One day Şafak comes to the hotel. The young woman, full of life, grows close to Kuzey. Şafak falls in love with Kuzey. Kuzey, in turn, wants to ‘love’ this woman who has touched his life, in one last struggle! But it is not easy. Five times Şafak leaves and returns to the one she loves! In the end, when Şafak disappears after a moment of explosion, Kuzey’s impossible search will go on.

In this emotional drama starring Mert Tanık, Denise Ankel, Bahar Yanılmaz, Buğra Koçtepe and Dilek Koldaş are the other prominent names in the cast. Feza Çaldıran’s meticulous camera stands ‘beside’ Selim Güneş’s professional work in photography. The film was shot with art direction by Natali Yeres, and its accomplished music is by Mete Aygüven.

Those who search for love, those who wait for death, those who bear witness and those who live in close embrace with pain. Those who live with the unfulfilled dreams of the past in a void that has now evolved into somewhere entirely ‘other’, ‘in the middle of a desolation’ that has lost all its meaning, and those who are hurt by life itself! Amid the murmurs of loneliness that nothing can console, in a void where you overflow with the feeling of having no one, of being abandoned, of being left behind, after the loss of the person who touched your shattered soul and heart, beyond any cure, a new and final appointment with death!

What stands on the screen is a narrative that does not belong to the place and plane we live in. A heartfelt lament for the lost knights and ‘close friendships’ that have given way to cheaper values in today’s world! Fragilities deemed unsuited to the pace of cruel, boorish, vulgar everyday life are reflected on the screen. ‘The Disenchanted’ is a meticulously adapted, carefully shot and thoroughly ‘honest’ drama, in which you feel the irreversibility, helplessness and dead end that cling to the face of lead actor Mert Tanık. Being honest is perhaps more important than almost anything else! Not merely big words combining with big photographs to produce beautiful images, but the necessary words combining with the necessary photographs to create the necessary images. Only, this sincere attempt cannot make you feel, to the marrow, the great loneliness and exhaustion that the story calls for. It merely touches on them! Had the elements feeding the atmosphere been stronger, a ‘tremendous’ narrative would have been reflected on the screen; this is where one gets stuck, after the ‘deep’ shattering of the soul one has watched! ‘The Disenchanted’ is a Selim Güneş film that should be watched amid the ordinariness of our day, which grows emptier with every passing minute. Delicate, not shouting – though there are many moments that call for shouting – and, perhaps most importantly, an adaptation more ‘honest’ than anything we have seen lately. (3 / 5)

*****

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