Watch ‘Commitment Hasan’ Review: Turkish Filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu Navigates Cultural Nuances of Remorse and Redemption Through a Half-Baked Rural Tale
Table of Contents
“Watch Online ‘Commitment Hasan’ Review: Turkish Filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu Navigates Cultural Nuances of Remorse and Redemption Through a Half-Baked Rural Tale”
“‘Commitment Hasan’ Review: Turkish Filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu Navigates Cultural Nuances of Remorse and Redemption Through a Half-Baked Rural Tale”
Soon though, Kaplanoglu’s drawn-out script crawls through different shades of Hasan, revealing a slyly conniving, often unfair manipulator gifted at safeguarding his interests at the expense of others. This is someone who knows his way around the taxing Kafkaesque bureaucracy he’s about to face. Not only has he been there before, but he’s also put others through the wringer in similar fashions, cheaply cutting corners for unjust personal advantage and a quick buck or two.
Through a lethargic pace that tests one patience and Özgür Eken’s lush cinematography of pastoral textures that alleviates some of that sluggishness, Kaplanoglu builds these complex facets of Hasan’s world in subtle detail, forming an indistinct prototype of the predominantly Muslim Turkish society where greed and self-centered pursuits are habitually at odds with the teachings of faith. In that regard, Hasan quickly finds that the pylon that would compromise the fertility of his soil is no big burden compared to the ethical threat his upcoming pilgrimage to Mecca would pose on his conscience. When he and his equally calculating wife Emine (a splendid Filiz Bozok) get an out-of-the-blue approval for the hajj, a mandatory religious duty in Islam, the couple obligatorily examine their troubling past acts, just so they can make amends in due course and embark on their spiritual journey with a clean slate.
The second entry in the filmmaker’s “Commitment” trilogy and Turkey’s Oscar submission (like the first installment of the series, simply called “Commitment”), this chapter shows Kaplanoglu’s ethical sensibilities and pronounced interest in family dynamics play out on a rural canvas. These curiosities neatly complement those depicted in the former film that unfolds in a handsome urban setting and chiefly concerns itself with class and contemporary womanhood. Still, one can’t help but crave a deeper societal critique here from Kaplanoglu.
To avoid didacticism at all costs and remain observational as his past catches up with Hasan, the filmmaker errs on the side of obviousness, making only the most simple-minded points (sure, any financial gain that is haram is bad), sidestepping some tougher cultural interrogations. On one hand, “Commitment Hasan” closely resembles a Nuri Bilge Ceylan movie through its patient cinematography and graceful visuals that allow both the nature and the people that inhabit it ample space to move at their own speed — dewy bushes, carefree wildlife, expansive prairies and so on. On the other, it seems to lack a crucial sense of earned wisdom and the intricate handle on the human psyche that Ceylan’s cinema effortlessly possesses.
Nevertheless, Kaplanoglu manages to offer up enough intrigue on a scene-by-scene basis, with his dedicated cast doing some terrific work. Eken and Bozok especially deliver a pair of layered performances as a married duo perfectly matched in their self-centered worldview, with the film’s strongest scenes underscoring the pair’s deceitful nature. In one of them — the movie’s most memorable thanks to Bozok’s crafty interpretation of Emine’s nonchalant greed — Emine tries to stiff a local needlewoman she’s ordered a custom piece from. In another, Hasan contemptibly attempts to seize a neighbor’s foreclosed land for pittance. Consequently, Kaplanoglu unearths some dark humor in the scenes that follow as the couple practice the ins and outs of their upcoming pilgrimage in a communal class and go on a performative goodwill spree, not because of genuine remorse but due to the demands of Islamic customs.
Kaplanoglu is less successful with conjuring up authentic emotions in the film’s clumsily eerie and serious final act, as Hasan pays a long-overdue visit to his estranged brother, someone he’d heartlessly conned years ago. The director is similarly heavy-handed with his vague metaphoric and thematic visuals throughout — rotting apples, levitating trees, dead cats and an especially on-the-nose shepherd character do very little to meaningfully augment his narrative. In the end, “Commitment Hasan” feels like a worthwhile yet underbaked endeavor that examines the fault lines of personal and religious virtue, one that spawns little curiosity for the next episode in Kaplanoglu’s ongoing trilogy.
If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on Google News too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.
For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com
If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Watch Movies & TV Series category