PesPese (2010) Reviews

• Ostensibly a Film About Free Spiritedness Actually Comes Across as a Study in Indifference

  l_rawjalaurence2014-07-05

  PEŞPEŞE focuses on the lives of several thirty-somethings in contemporary Istanbul. Pelin (Azra Akın) is a photographer resident in London visiting Istanbul, who happens to come across Can (Sencer Alagöz) in a coffee-bar. Can invites her home to stay with her sister Ebru (Zeynep Pabuççuoğlu). Can and Ebru have been trying to have a child, but their inabilities have started to affect their marriage. Özgür (Anıl Altınöz) has split up with his wife and has shacked up with brother Kaan (Okan Yalabik), who is himself having second thoughts about a proposed wedding to Naz (Begüm Kutuk). Eventually all the relationships break up, and Pelin departs for the Himalayas, while Can is seeing leaving Istanbul together for the airport. Ertan Velimatti Alagöz and Sevı Elif Alagöz's film is ostensibly about the difficulties experienced in sustaining any relationship, but the sparse cinematic style (long close-ups and leisurely shots, reminiscent once more of early Nuri Bilge Ceylan's movies) suggest that all the characters are imprisoned by their lack of ability to communicate with one another. They embrace; they kiss; but without any real passion or commitment. Everything seems a meaningless ritual to them; they are imprisoned within their own obsessions. Sencer Alagöz's songs express a yearning for a better world, but the characters are too superficial in their emotions to be able to achieve their ambitions. PEŞPEŞE is ultimately a film about destruction: human life is reduced to a series of meaningless rituals in which we care not a jot about what happens to the characters.

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