KOSMOS (Turkish) (2010)

‘I turned my heart and despaired of all the labour. I did that to stop my heart expecting any reward for my labour. For what has man for all his labour and for striving of his heart? I could not find the answer.’ 

Amid wild blizzard, a strange man came running from snow-clad mountain to the town and by chance saves the life of a drowning boy. The man soon becomes a queer unexpected guest for the harmonious small Turkish town called Kars. He is bizarre and loner and doesn’t speak much but when he does occasionally, he utters something so prophetic. The only thing he does is roaming, observing and healing the men from their trauma with some unearthly powers. The father of the saved boy gives him shelter and helps him to find the job for survival. But the man is belong to different dust, he’s no more concerned or inclined to labour; as he’s the outsider who listens to his heart than head or hands. The town is transition in volatile political and military border shift and amid all this a strange break in robberies in the town becomes a talk of the town.

Here is a remarkable cinema which is existentially introspective, spiritually rich and visually so poetic that probes deeper into the spirit of humanity. I won’t waste my words since after a long time I find a kind of an elusive and weird protagonist who’s as internally enigmatic and as externally mythical and yet deeply moving. Kosmos is maybe a angelic messiah, distant star or enigmatic riddle of humanity but an experience to feel on screen. The symbolic density in the frames and soothing background score are high point of the film.Rarely do we see the blizzard and natural snowfall captured in the entire film so elegantly juxtaposing and suffusing with the protagonist of the film. The film is visually so poetic and it’s so beautifully shot with classy long shots and frames with high contrasts. One may fall in love with snow-clad city of Kars with its old ruined buildings, mountain, river, bridge and rail tracks. The natural elegance of frames reminds me of visual auteur Terence Mallick and its enigmatic existential protagonist reminds me the cinema of Werner Herzog especially the two brilliant films he made with enigma called Bruno S.

This is my first film of Director Reza Erdim and the man is equally impressive as his other contemporary fellow country filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The only weakness of the film is editing and narration which seems so complex in one and so spoon feeding one in another. But than it would be cynical if you won’t appreciate the higher points over the lost and missed ones!

Ratings-7.5/10