Isztambul or Istanbul. An attractive & complacent middle aged Budapest housewife goes into shock and despair after her selfish husband suddenly leaves her for a younger model. She walks out of her house in her night clothes, shoeless and armed with a pair of scissors, takes a tram ride to the end of the line and is then admitted to a sanatorium. From here she escapes with only a modest amount of money and begins a journey via various transports to Istanbul where she stays in a low budget hotel and meets a married migrant Turkish worker. The film flips between her family back in Hungary, worried about her state of mind and whereabouts, and her movements and observations in Turkey. There is little dialogue but the film is enhanced by the street scenes of Istanbul. This is a beautifully made film about a torrid situation - one of a breed of recent Turkish, Romanian & Iranian films that rely on the cinematography to paint a picture on celluloid. It comes straight out the the Ceylan school of film-making. Dark and brooding throughout. The closing scenes of Cappadocia are breath-taking. Johanna ter Steege & Yavuz Bingol are superb. The spoken dialogue is mixed Turkish, Hungarian and English, however, the English subtitles are very limited. It is one of those films that you could watch over and over again. If you like the works of Turkish director Nuri Ceylan then you will like this film from Hungarian director Ferenc Török. Well recommended.
Review of Istanbul
