Bal - honey

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Movie
German title Bal - honey
Original title Bal
Country of production Turkey , Germany
original language Turkish
Publishing year 2010
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Semih Kaplanoğlu
script Orçun Köksal
Semih Kaplanoğlu
production Semih Kaplanoğlu
Johannes Rexin
Bettina Brokemper
camera Barış Özbiçer
cut Ayhan Ergürsel
Semih Kaplanoğlu
Suzan Hande Güneri
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
Süt - Milk

Bal - Honig (English-language festival title Honey ) is a feature film by the Turkish director Semih Kaplanoğlu from 2010. The drama is about a six-year-old boy from the Anatolian province, whose father, a beekeeper, disappears without a trace in the mountain forest. When the desperation grows, the boy goes looking for his father himself.

The film premiered in the competition at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival and won the Golden Bear . Bal was shown in Turkish cinemas on April 9, 2010; The film opened in German cinemas on September 9, 2010.

History of origin

The drama closes the autobiographical “Yusuf” trilogy that the filmmaker began with Yumurta - Ei (2007) and Süt (2008; German: “Milk”). The backwards-told trilogy, in which Kaplanoğlu is about the rediscovery of the Anatolian province, has the poet Yusuf as the main character. In the first part, the 40-year-old poet returns to his hometown after the death of his mother from his self-chosen urban exile, while in the second part Yusuf is 20 years old and dreams of a career as a poet. In the third and last part, Kaplanoğlu looks at six-year-old Yusuf. In this context, however, it appears paradoxical that the action by Bal begins in October 2009; However, the two previous films Yumurta and Süt, which are technically linked to this , are set at an earlier point in time.

Bal is based on a script by Semih Kaplanoğlu and Orçun Köksal and was realized by the joint film production company Kaplan Film Production . The script was included in the Script Development Fund of the Antalya Eurasia Film Festival and was supported with a sum of 25,000 Turkish Lira (approx. 11,800 euros). The film was co-produced by the German production company Heimatfilm . The film project also received support from the Eurimages film funding fund , the North Rhine-Westphalia Film Foundation and the TV channels ZDF and ARTE . Kaplanoğlu did not use any music or artificial lighting. With Bal, Kaplanoğlu wanted to “reach the core” that defines the figure of Yusuf. The film was shot in the Eastern Pontic Mountains near the Black Sea coast, in the Çamlıhemşin district of the Rize province .

action

Homestead in the Pontic Mountains, similar to the scene

The film takes place in October 2009. Six-year-old Yusuf grows up as an only child with his father Yakup, a beekeeper, and his mother Zehra in humble circumstances in the mountains of northeastern Anatolia. He has just started school and is learning to read and write. In his free time he likes to accompany his father deep into the mysterious forest. There Yakup hangs his beehives with the help of a rope in the top tops of the largest trees. Later he climbs into these trees and harvests the black forest honey for which the region on the Black Sea coast is famous. He removes the honeycombs with a stick, separates them from the frame and brushes off the fogged bees.

Yusuf has a silent, close friendship with his father, to whom he reads aloud at home without hesitation. In the village school, the first graders receive a red plastic pin for good reading. In class, however, the loner shies away from reading aloud. Yusuf always starts to stutter in front of the teacher and his classmates and rubs the tears from his face. The other children laugh at him. At the same time, Yusuf is afraid of being the only one without a badge. Unlike the other children, he spends the breaks alone in the classroom. Nevertheless, Yusuf loves the language and reads a poem by Arthur Rimbaud at home that fascinated him at school. His poetic streak is also expressed in his thirst for knowledge about nature.

When Yusuf tells his father about a dream, Yakup warns him that you should only whisper your dreams and not tell everyone. When the bees leave the area, the yakup is forced to look for honey in more remote mountain regions. After his father left with the donkey, Yusuf stopped speaking completely. Mother Zehra, who works in the tea fields, is perplexed by his reticence. When Yakup does not return after several days, Yusuf and Zehra worry about him. When the magical night is approaching, in which the arrival of the prophet will be celebrated, Zehra gives her son to the grandmother in the neighboring village. In the story of the prophet, Yusuf believes he recognizes his father. Mother and son repeatedly search for the missing father before they receive news of his death days later - Yakup died while climbing a rotten tree.

Reviews

Bal celebrated its world premiere on February 11, 2010 at the 60th Berlin Film Festival . German critics praised the film for its lack of words, the beautiful, non-romanticizing nature shots and the performance of the eight-year-old child actor Bora Altaş . They counted Bal among the favorites for the main prize of the film festival.

Katja Nicodemus ( Die Zeit ) praised the film as an “existential narrative about a child's perception of the world, about loss and grief” . She emphasized the calm rhythm and the landscape shots: "In Bal you think you can smell the rain that is pouring down on the boy's way to school." According to Peter Uehling ( Berliner Zeitung ), the images of nature for Yusuf's soul life are "neither in an old-fashioned symbolist nor in an expressive relationship. ” Bora Altaş plays “ in a touching, narrow-shouldered manner, a dreamy, friendly child who, due to its rich emotional life, is not suitable for fast data processing. ”

Detlef Kuhlbrodt ( die tageszeitung ) spoke of a meditative film, while Christina Tilmann ( Der Tagesspiegel ) praised Kaplanoğlu's directorial work as “one of the most beautiful, dense films at this festival” , made up of unspectacular ingredients. “[...] a film that lets you dream, that makes your own seeing and feeling vibrate in a world as wide as it is silent. It feels like wind, like oxygen, after long canned air. Or like the sun falling through the forest from wonderfully towering trees. "

Thorsten Funke (critic.de) notes that "Kaplanoğlu, whose own father comes from this region of Anatolia, records all of this with an almost conservational interest, because of course this world in modern Turkey is doomed." Marieke Steinhoff ( section ), on the other hand, praises the "careful sound design that puts you in the middle of the crunching, whirring, chirping forest, the woody, half-dark family house and the cramped, isolating school."

Awards

The film premiered in the competition at the 60th Berlin Film Festival. Director Semih Kaplanoğlu won the Golden Bear and the Ecumenical Jury Prize for Bal . After 1964 , the main prize of the film festival went to a Turkish director again.

At the 29th International Istanbul Film Festival , Bal received the jury's special award and the audience award for best Turkish film. In addition, Barış Özbiçer was recognized for his work as a cameraman on the film.

At the 2010 European Film Awards , the film was nominated in three categories, but received no awards. Bal was also the Turkish candidate for an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film , but was not shortlisted.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Bal honey . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2010 (PDF; test number: 124 200 K).
  2. ↑ cf. Release dates in the Internet Movie Database (accessed August 7, 2010)
  3. ↑ cf. Critique of Süt by Bernd Buder in film-dienst 1/2010 (accessed on February 20, 2010 via Munzinger-Online )
  4. ↑ a b c cf. Uehling, Peter: The soul in nature . In: Berliner Zeitung, February 17, 2010, No. 40, p. 29
  5. ↑ content and movie data on Kaplan Film Production (Engl.) ( Memento of 25 September 2010 at the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ a b cf. Kuhlbrodt, Detlef: Devils whisper in people's hearts . In: the daily newspaper, February 17, 2010, p. 28
  7. ↑ Nicodemus, Katja: A festival out of madness and snow . In: Die Zeit, February 18, 2010, No. 5, p. 55
  8. ↑ cf. Tilmann, Christina: The red ribbon . In: Der Tagesspiegel, February 17, 2010, p. 26
  9. ^ Funke, Thorsten: film review on critic.de
  10. ↑ Steinhoff, Marieke: film review in the cut
  11. ↑ Hürriyet : International Istanbul Film Festival ends with gala, awards , April 18, 2010. (English)