The work of a respected Turkish film-maker little known in Britain, Reha Erdem's confident, skilfully framed allegory centres on a bearded, cheerfully grinning young man descending on an unnamed town, shattered by warfare on the closed border between two unidentified countries. The time is winter, the ground covered in snow, the wind endlessly blowing, the political context obviously Turkey and Armenia. The visitor revives a drowned child and goes on to perform other miracles, each heralded then rejected. Is he a messiah, a faith healer, a visitor from another planet, an inspired fraud or a holy fool? All of these possibilities seem to be left open as the film comes full circle in a way that resembles Roman Polanski's playfully pessimistic first movie, Two Men and a Wardrobe.
Kosmos – review
Philip French
Reha Erdem's enigmatic political allegory about the conflict between Turks and Armenians has rich echoes of Polanski, writes Philip French
Contributor
Philip French
Philip French
The GuardianTramp
