"And the Rest Will Follow" (O da bir şey mi?): A Few Words on the Film

The film I watched recently, O da bir şey mi? (And the Rest Will Follow), is a Turkey–Bulgaria–Romania co-production. It screened in Rotterdam in February and at the Istanbul Film Festival in April. It's picked up some awards, among other things. You can check the footnote for details¹. I'm leaving the trailers below.

Timuçin Esen and İpek Bilgin are names I recognize. The director and screenwriter is Pelin Esmer. This was the first film of hers I've seen; let me say up front, I'll be checking out her other films too, God willing. I liked her style.

The plot of the film goes roughly like this: there's a filmmaker; he has a scattered, disheveled life. He goes to Söke for a film festival. There, various acquaintances and entanglements, etc. Beautiful summary, isn't it? :) You can find what the film is about anywhere; but what the film made me feel, you can only find on the best blog site in the world. Here you go, ladies and gentlemen:

Throughout the film we keep hearing the question "Who's actually living the life they wanted?" from the mouths of different characters, and we feel it the whole way through. Some have messy, scattered lives, some have relatively orderly ones; but no one is living the life they wanted. A person always remains at a distance from what they're searching for.

Some are the lead in their own lives, while others are left with nothing more than a bit part in the play of life. But everyone has a claim to make against everyone else's life: "Is that even something?"

A friend² I watched the film with made a nice observation: "Man, what is this — everything in this film is a mess. Even the guy's suitcase is crammed full; have you ever seen a suitcase like that?"

Yes, everything in the film really was a mess — but Timuçin Esen's suitcases most of all. :D

The first half of the film moves a bit slowly. In the second half things come together a bit more; but don't take my saying "come together" too literally — even the coming-together is a mess. :)

I didn't think the acting in the film was all that great, in my opinion. Timuçin is a different story; it's fair to say the man carried the whole thing on his own. As for Merve Asiye Özgür, who plays the lead, Aliye, I had a negative view of her performance right up until the hotel-room scene in the second half. That, in my opinion, was a flawless performance. May our actress's road ahead be a bright one.

Multiple stories and films are woven into this one throughout. This, too, is a mess. :) The narrator, especially, is the strangest part of all. But don't get me wrong; the messiness and the strangeness have been arranged with tremendous care and precision. I don't know whether all this scattered wreckage could have been told any other way. The film is really made up of stories that exist within or around all of our lives; but its achievement is that it manages to present this to the viewer with a subtle, artistic eye. Commendable.

The film moves a bit slowly. I don't know if the subject matter will appeal to everyone. The moment you say "drama," a certain portion of people already start backing away. Personally, though, I didn't see anything especially "dramatic" about it; it was all things we already know, things we're used to. :DD Anyway, if you'd like to take an unexaggerated, unagitated look at the familiar dramas of ordinary people living their everyday lives, you might turn to this film, in which I'd argue you can find a bit of yourself too. Is that even something?