Movie Review: The Wild Pear Tree

The Wild Pear Tree **** / *****

Directed by: Nuri Bilge Ceylan   

Written by: Akin Aksu and Ebru Ceylan and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Starring: Dogu Demirkol (Sinan Karasu), Murat Cemcir (Idris Karasu), Bennu Yildirimlar (Asuman Karasu), Hazar Ergüçlü (Hatice), Serkan Keskin (Suleyman), Tamer Levent (Grandfather Recep), Öner Erkan (Imam Nazmi), Ahmet Rifat Sungar (Ali Riza), Akin Aksu (Imam Veysel), Kubilay Tunçer (Ilhami), Ercüment Balakoglu (Grandfather Ramazan), Kadir Çermik (Mayor Adnan), Özay Fecht (Grandmother Hayriye), Sencar Sagdic (Nevzat), Asena Keskinci (Yasemin Karasu).

 

There is very possibly a better version of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s The Wild Pear Tree that runs only two hours or so, instead of the epic three hours and ten minutes that the final version does. But while a shorter film may have been a better film, I cannot help but think it would less of a Nuri Bilge Ceylan film than the version we got. Ceylan’s films – in particular his last three – Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Winter Sleep and now this – are all long films, made up of long conversations, as our main characters gradually come to some sort of realization. In Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (which is my favorite of his work), it is a group of cops with a murderer driving around the countryside, as the murderer tries to remember where he buried his victim. Eventually, everything is learned about the crime – and yet, nothing is learned – the closer you look, the less you understand. In Winter Sleep, it was about the main characters slow dawning realization that he is not the beloved figure in his small town he thought he was – he is actually hated, and with good reason. By the end, he realizes he is an asshole. In The Wild Pear Tree, it is about the young would be writer, Sinan Karasu (Dogu Demirkol), freshly graduated from university, and so sure of himself, his ideas about writing, his ideas about his father, etc. – who over the course of three hours and many, long conversations who realizes he doesn’t understand as much as he thinks he does – and that he is a lot more like his father, who he hates, than he cares to admit. Yes, you could make a shorter version of this film – and it may be more conventionally satisfying (and more people would likely see it) – but I like what Ceylan does, and admire the fact that he takes his time getting there. The payoff, when it comes, means more.

 

When we first meet Sinan, it is as he walks through his small hometown, just graduated from college, and he is accosted (in a friendly way) but a shopkeeper, who wants Sinan to remind his father, Idris (Murat Cemcir) about the gold coins he lent him months ago. Sinan seems hardly surprised that his father owes money – his father always owes money. He is a gambling addict, and already the family has had to downsize into an apartment from their house, and Sinan’s mother, Asuman (Bennu Yildirmlar) has confiscated her husband’s credit card, and makes him give her his entire paycheque he earns as a teacher as soon as he gets it. It doesn’t help – Idris finds more and more ways to get, and lose, money. Like his father, Sinan has trained to be a teacher – there will be an exam the next week, and if he does well, he will be assigned a teaching post – perhaps in the dreaded East – but somewhere. But Sinan is convinced he is a writer. He has written a novel – called The Wild Pear Tree – but is very coy about what the novel is about. He says it refuses categorization (don’t all young authors first novels, in their mind, refuse categorization) – but it basically sounds like a bunch of short stories about the people in his home town. He is determined to get the book published – he has a friend at the printers who can help get the novel printed for a good price – but of course, he doesn’t have the money.

 

Through the course of the film, Sinan will have long conversations with people about his work, his life and what it all means. There is the Mayor, who Sinan foolishly thinks will give him the money to publish the book, but since it won’t help with tourism, why would he? The self-made man, who reads a lot, but dropped out of high school, who has very definite ideas about the types of things Sinan should write about – especially if he expects him to finance it. There is the celebrated, older author (a great performance by Serkan Keskin), who Sinan subtly, and then not so subtly, needles and insults about his own work, before finally asking for help. A pair of Imam’s. And old school mate, Hatice (Hazar Ergüçlü), who is about to marry an older, financially secure man – because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do if you’re a woman? Between these long scenes of debate and discussion, there are the home scenes, where Sinan butt’s heads with Idris, and even his mother, who is frustrated with him, but stands by him. The film never really says how much time passes, but it becomes clear near the end of the film that it is at least a few years from the beginning to the end. Through it all, Sinan seems to get worn down a little bit – the novel doesn’t really work out, the teaching career is still an option, but he hasn’t done that either. The things he has done to get money aren’t that different to what his father would do. The last sequence in the movie is a long conversation between father and son – and Sinan finally realizes their similarities.

 

The Wild Pear Tree, tellingly, doesn’t really provide any answers to the various questions it raises – the various debates at its core. At the end of the film, Sinan has to (literally) keep digging for those. Maybe he’ll never find them. Maybe he will become a celebrated artist now that he understands more. Maybe he’ll be worn down by life like his old man. Maybe something else will happen. Yes, The Wild Pear Tree is a long film – but it uses that length wisely, and this is not really an example of “slow cinema”. The film is full of words, full of ideas. It is also a beautiful film. There is never a doubt about whose work this is. While I don’t think the film quite hits the same heights as Once Upon a Time in Anatolia or Winter Sleep – it is another wonderful film by Ceylan – whose work continues to fascinate and challenge.