Alone (2008)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Just what I expected

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

one of Turkish films about solitude, the other and love. seductive for atmosphere and for tension and for the manner to escape from yourself. simple, delicate, wise. one of films about the meet who change everything and who becomes not exactly essential but the fundamental choice for discover yourself. like many Turkish contemporary films, after its end, the only great memory remains the flavor. like the cinnamon flavor. sad. and refreshing. and this is all.

This is perhaps Çağan Irmak's best movie to date - an anti-romantic drama set in and around Beyoğlu that ostensibly analyzes the crisis of contemporary masculinities, but ends up showing how self- interested people actually are.Alper (Cemal Hünal) is a successful chef with a penchant for collecting 80s pop LPs. In public he comes across as a generous, though perfectionist boss; in private he lives a life of solitude and self-interest, as he regularly haunts out local whores for a spot of S&M. Into his life comes Ada (Melis Birkan), a clothes-shop owner who initially rejects him but responds eventually to his persistent advances. The two of them fall in love but inevitably the affair ends in tears.That is the entire plot of the movie; but nonetheless Irmak retains our interest by making telling thematic points. Alper's fondness for 80s music is part of his conquest strategy; chat the girl up, take her home, cook her a meal, put on some soft music and sexual success will inevitably follow. Unable - or is it unwilling - to acknowledge his true feelings, he inhabits a mental prison, despite his conquests. This is suggested through a regular use of shots showing him driving a car through the streets of İstanbul, with the camera outside focusing on his expression behind the wind-shield. On other occasions Irmak uses prison-images - for example, photographing Alper in close-up behind a metal bed-head, with iron bars obscuring his face. The film's narrative unfolds in a series of two-shots and shot/reverse shots, which might suggest a concentration on character. However Irmak intersperses these shots with a series of jump-cuts - for example, when Alper prepares his dinner, or when Ada cooks breakfast one morning after a night of sexual passion. This technique suggests that the protagonists are somehow in a hurry; they want to get as quickly as possible through their daily rituals so that they can move on to something else. They cannot reflect on their emotions or their feelings towards one another.The final sequence is particularly memorable. Ada and Alper re- encounter one another in Beyoğlu: by now Ada is married to someone else, while Alper is still isolated. As they exchange banalities with one another, we hear their true feelings expressed in voice-over. We learn from Ada that she has a memory of her time with Alper - a 45 rpm record that she took from his mother's house - that Alper knows nothing about. Here is the true source of nostalgia; not necessarily a mood, or a piece of music, but an object that recalls the past. Alper can, and never will, discover how this works, being too much concerned with himself alone.

I am very much certain that this is the most under valuated film ever made! Surprisingly daring as it comes from a country where not even real love kisses were ever shown on screen, it could -far as its realism is concerned - come from any western country, my own included, where no barriers are put when it comes to presenting the real world in a movie picture. Furthermore the film goes far beyond a love story, as its goal is to show how some men – here represented by Alper, the main character of the film- get caught in the sly ambush called "life style" modern society puts for them, which in turn means "plenty" to satisfy a man's greedy and never ending luster for "freedom" "good times", and consequently, "sex"! When he meets Ada, Alper does realize that she is really worth to be with, therefore for the first time in his life he tries hard to make it with her. Yet, as time goes by, and in spite of something strong inside him telling him that he is in the right way, -for he does realize that this relationship has upgraded his life standard -, he finally gives in to luster calling him like the sirens called Ulysses, so, out of the blue, he breaks up with her, hurting her badly.Soon he has to deal with the consequences! Well, these consequences and the way they are illustrated in the film, is something I have never ever seen on screen before!!! As a person myself who is very much aware of the hard dilemmas a man has to face in his life, especially if he is very much absorbed by his life style of "plenty", I was like never before touched by the character of the "lonely man" portrayed in this film. And I have never ever cried this much as when watching it!!! To me this is an anthem to the men who become victims to their –seemingly – "welfare" ("freedom-independence-sex!")! And there are certain hints in the film that this "welfare" is strongly mastered by the man's libido. So, behind the surface, which is telling the story of an unfulfilled love, a lot in "Issiz Adam" reminded me of Steve McQueens's "shame" only, that one, by illustrating an extreme case, is focused even more specifically on what being ruled by his sexual libido really means to a man, and where this possession of mind may eventually lead him to. As in "shame", so in "Issiz adam" a man comes to realizing the catastrophic consequences of his choices when it's too late! Here, the inability of Alper to stay together with Ada in spite of the fact that he does love her after all, deals with his addiction to "being free" , in a "freedom" sexual fun is very much included! Playing Alper, Cemal Hunal, builds in a most heartbreaking way, the portrait of a tragic hero who falls victim to his own choices! The rest of the cast too, contributes to an amazing extend to keeping the film up to a level of really very high quality. I should mention the "mother" who, representing the values of a sweet tradition, feels the dangers of her son's way of thinking and tries to warn him about the no way out of his choices, and the bitterness the route to sweet loneliness may take him to. Beautiful songs and music -mostly Turkish - from the romantic 70's and 80's, serve as the perfect sonic background of the story and as a unique amplifier of its -at some points really very dramatic- sentimental power. Last but not least to mention: The unique, original,innovative way the director shows in the last 18 minutes long scene the ultimate desperation and devastation that rule the souls of the main two characters is really unprecedented, and make this film as much a realistic masterpiece, human, sad and heartbreaking as it takes!In this magic scene, the director manages to turn into motion picture not only what is visible, and not only the things the two x-lovers are allowed to say to each other framed by the restrictions of their present life conventions after 4 years of separation, but also their hidden, unspeakable,inexpressible and therefore extremely painful thoughts! The bleeding wound of –willingly or unwillingly – losing each other and the shock of all by chance meeting again -a meeting that obviously had often repeatedly happened in their dreams-, is absolutely eloquent in their faces, in their movements, in their words, and this shock combined with the desperation of dying to express feelings they are not allowed to show to each other, does inevitably reach the spectator and leaves him fully participating and thus devastated too! Their final embrace will break your heart! To make a long story short, do "discover" this piece of art! Especially if you are "lonely men" yourselves!

Popular Turkish television writer-director Çağan Irmak best known for his series "Çemberimde Gül Oya" and "Asmalı Konak", proved his popular appeal with this particularly modern take on the somewhat overdone Rom-Com genre that has a peculiarly Turkish bent which makes it well worth seeking out for anyone who wants an insight into that country's attitudes to love and sex.Cemal Hunal certainly looks the part of a romantic lead as Alper and is not without his charms but the character he plays is so thoroughly repellent that it is impossible to cheer for him as he attempt to woo the feisty Melis Birkan as Ada, who one can't help but feel should have known better, under the kindly gaze of the brilliant but underutilised Yildiz Kültür as Alper's mother.The filmmakers through in a fair few laughs, normally at Alpers expense, but these mostly relate to his degenerate sexual escapades and do nothing to endear him to the audience and it is this lack of pathos that was for me this films ultimate undoing as even at the end I could barely shed a tear when the film lived up to its English language title by leaving him alone.I'm living with tainted blood.