Unnecessarily long and self-conscious to a fault, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is, on the surface, a police procedural of a murder. The murderer has confessed to his crime, and the movie begins with him leading a team of policemen, a doctor, the prosecutor and sundry to the scene where the body was disposed. It ends two and a half hours later with some insight into some of the people involved and a fair understanding of what may have transpired. While the movie is shot extremely well in the director’s recognizable style (numerous wide-angle shots of landscapes, many that include clouds), there is a deliberate formulaic feel to many sequences. Case-in-point: the ineffective final scene. By a less-recognized director, this movie would have been a commendable effort. However, for the well-regarded Ceylan, this is a step-down. The opening two-shot prelude of the movie though is a master’s work.
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