Imagine Istanbul

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) another splendid film by Turkish great director and photographer Nuri Bilge Ceylan is the story of the search of a murder victim’s body. However, leaving this story in the hands of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, we can expect much more in a film than a simple police story. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia was one of the Turkish movies to play at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), 2011.

Written and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, we are left with a beautifully filmed dark story of ambiguity and labyrinthine truths, often times the way we must our own lives to comprehend the incomprehensible of modern day life.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia was written by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ercan Kesal, and Ebru Ceylan. Starring Turkish actors Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan,Taner Birsel, A. Mumtaz Taylan and Ercan Kesal in the chief acting roles. The cinematographer is Gokhan Tiryaki.

Mr Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s filmography includes The Small Town (1998), Clouds of May (2000), Distant (2003), Grand Prix prize winner, and best actor prizes for its two male stars at the Cannes Film Festival, Climates (2006), Three Monkeys (2008) and Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (11).

For your viewing pleasure, enjoy the trailer of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia here and don’t miss another excellent film by Nuri Bilge Ceylan when it is released in the theatres soon.

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This is a beautiful video – a collage of Ara Guler’s black and white photographs of Istanbul. It is an homage to the Istanbul of days gone by. A world that has vanished now. Sad thing is, all of these people in the photographs have passed from their difficult lives. The poverty is evident in these bleak photographs but so is the human spirit and the souls of these people that Ara Güler found and photographed as he walked along the cobbled streets of Istanbul. The music accompanying the video is Nightwish-Sleeping Sun.

You can read more about the life of Ara Guler from a previous article of mine on the Imagine Istanbul site here.

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Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence?

Ever since the release of Orhan Pamuk’s novel, The Museum of Innocence, people have searched for the Museum and waited patiently for Pamuk to open the museum he promised its readers. Mr Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006 and winner of the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for My Name Is Red, where is the Museum we all search for?

We’ve been searching for evidence, all of us. There were even gorgeous photos released in the New York Times of objects Mr. Pamuk had collected to add to his collection of memorabilia for the proposed Museum. We, believers, search. Like lovers, seeking proof of love, we become detectives who seek your Museum to witness all those things that once touched lovely Füsun’s hands or hair or skin.

A Facebook page of the most ardent of fans of his book The Museum of Innocence was created. A community hooked on his book was formed. A trip to Istanbul was planned among people who loved the book and wanted to visit the Museum and enter into the world of Füsun and her lover Kemal. But the expected opening date never came. Gossip, rumors, whisperings, investigations into the Museum grew, shared among a community in Facebook.

Fans of the Museum of Innocence wrote passionately of their love of the city of Istanbul and their enchantment with the book. The story of love and passion and its ultimately tragic ending enthralled millions of readers, all longing to believe in the existence of the Museum. We long to believe in the Museum’s existence as we long to believe in something that once was and now is gone. Even people lucky enough to go to Istanbul, used Orhan Pamuk’s novel as a source of information and like detectives tracked the very places where Füsun lived, the streets she walked, the places they went, the holy place where those lovers met. They search for the remnants of Füsun and what she represents.

But nothing yet has come of the Museum of Innocence. I’m waiting myself. Fans of Facebook found buildings and streets in Istanbul, objects they had come to know from the pages of the novel. They posted their beautiful photographs of the small cobblestone streets, its ancient buildings and monuments and the muted colors of the sky of Istanbul. There’s a renovated building in Istanbul with a red door, said one… Perhaps the Museum is opening soon pending renovations.

Or, is it all a playful joke, this museum of memories, concocted by Mr. Pamuk himself to create memories and puzzles in the minds of readers of his book.

There is no doubt, that all who visit Istanbul will leave with a memory of that city. Many will have their own tales to tell. Our experience of Istanbul imprint upon us because Istanbul surrounds us with its sights, its smells, its noises, its chaos. It envelopes us, wraps us up with its huzun, its melancholy and never quite leaves our souls.

Mr Pamuk’s book will bring people to Istanbul in search of the memories of the love story of Kemal and Füsun. He stated in an interview with Deutsche Welle, “The museum is not an illustration of the novel and the novel is not an explanation of the museum. They are two representations of one single story perhaps.” There is even an official website for the Museum of Innocence, alas, the website is only in Turkish. Why, friends, the Museum must be coming, there is even a map of its location.

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