"We need to slow down our life's beat in order to sharpen our perception."
Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan

For many of us, life has slowed down in recent weeks. In cinema, as well, there is an emerging genre called slow cinema. Long takes, sparse dialogue, and a minimalist, observational style are its hallmarks. Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan utilizes the style in his film "Distant", released in 2002. I watched the film last night in order to see if it had anything to say about our current crisis.

The main character Mahmut, a commercial photographer living in Istanbul, is alienated from his family and colleagues. His isolation is self-inflicted, however. He seems to be suffering an existential crisis due to his loss of ambition and idealism. The film ends ambiguously; the viewer is left to decide whether the protagonist is at peace, or merely resigned, to his fate.

While Mahmut's disaffection is of his own making, the protagonist in Eva Husson's "Girls of the Sun" is the victim of uncontrollable forces. Bahar is a successful attorney on a visit home to her village in Northern Iraq. ISIS forces invade, massacre the men, and kidnap the women and children. In the blink of an eye, her entire world is destroyed. Bahar, however, survives to take up arms against the terrorists. "The very act of refusing oppression is a victory" is Bahar's credo. I take issue with the way writer-director Husson presents the material (read my review), but she tells an important story.

Here's the latest article from the Drama Movies site at BellaOnline.com.

Girls of the Sun Film Review
Women's experience of war inspired writer-director Eva Husson's film "Girls of the Sun". Set in Iraq, this unusual drama tells the story of a woman kidnapped by ISIS who then leads a group of female soldiers in the fight against terrorism.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art306942.asp

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