Araf/Somewhere in Between (2012)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Araf begins with a shot of a giant pot on a train of what looks like sand tip over at a sluggish pace. At one point it becomes clear that it only seemed sand on the surface. In fact it is burning hot, orange glowing, molten metal that pours out of the pot.This pre title shot is a great idea for a beginning. One that is promising. It's like it tells you something about what you are about to see. But what I saw in the movie was only so interesting. The pot metaphor deserved a better movie.You get a peek into the lives of these characters but we don't see anything that is particularly surprising. For instance who doesn't know that a lot of people are longing for things out of their reach? Or that there is domestic violence? Or that there are unhappy marriages? What's the point of showing all these things?The miscarriage is a false note to me. It doesn't fit with the rest of the film because of the way the scene is filmed namely too shocking and uncomfortable. And the marriage in jail seems too much of a "fairytale" ending to me. I think it should have ended less brightly.But although it is far from a complete success as far as the script is concerned and I question the point of showing a lot of what the film shows, I do feel that it's a movie which has its heart in the right place and which a lot of the time does what it sets out to do rather well.

I am a big fan of Turkish and World Art-house Drama and Romantic movies. Looking for the festivals and big directors of era especially Haneke,Trier and Ceylan and Kim Ki-duk. But today i found just another one named Yeşim Ustaoğlu. You can feel the taste of Zeki Demirkubuz and N. Bilge Ceylan's movies in her last shot. By the way Shooting the drama movies aren't so easy in these days. There are a few movies in genre to keep you make feel the real pain and sadness for example Haneke's Amour and Zeki Demirkubuz's Kader.Don't like to write much and spoil the movie but just one word; you should see the dramatic story of Zehra (Neslihan Atagül) who was captivated in between love ,trust and fate in the hands of darkness and pain. just another Fabulous Turkish cinema a must see...

"Every moment that we haven't seen, heard, touched or smelled before will start to reverberate in us in a very different way and take another form once we experience it. In Araf, I tried to touch upon those fleeting moments and feelings that can occur." – Yeşim UstaoğluIn a disintegrating town midway between Istanbul and Ankara, two teenagers search for something better. A girl (in a luminous performance by Neslihan Atagül) starts to pursue the desire awakening in her body while the boy-next-door hopes that a TV show will change his life.Molten slag breaks forth. A windshield wiper does not stop rain. And nothing can be the same.

Araf/Somewhere in Between which won the Best Film prize in the 2012 Abu Dhabi Film Festival is an absorbing feature from Yesim Ustaoglu.Zehra and Olgun are waiters at a café in a service station. They live monotonous lives and are going nowhere. Olgun loves Zehra but is not able to express himself. Zehra is feeling suffocated in her house under her strict parents and is looking for a way out. To her it seems that Mahur, a truck driver offers the best chance of escape to a better life.There is a scene inside a ladies toilet involving Zehra which is reminiscent of Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and in my view director Yesim Ustaoglu goes a step too far. Overall though Araf offers assured direction and very good performances. It is yet another impressive film from the Turkish cinema.