Film: Men On The Bridge
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 13th June 2011
Distributor: Drakes Avenue
Certificate: 15
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Asli Özge
Starring: Cemile Ilker, Umut Ilker, Fikret Portakal, Murat Tokgöz
Genre: Drama
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Germany/Turkey/Netherlands
Language: Turkish
Review by: Natalie Meziani
Men On The Bridge does exactly what it says on the cover – it follows the tall dreams and futile lives of three men who work along the Bosphorous bridge joining the east and west halves of Istanbul. After winning the Golden Tulip Award for Best National Film at the Istanbul International Film Festival, the film stands out as a talented export from the lesser known field that is Turkish cinema. Director Asli Ozge produces a collective portrait of her three protagonists, briefly detailing their mundane lives without any requirement for an extensive plot.
Men On The Bridge has three central characters: Umut Ilker, Fikret Portakal and Murat Tokgoz. Umut is a taxi driver whose wife, Cemile, persistently worries about finding the perfect apartment despite their financial difficulties. His tedious job leaves him constantly stuck in traffic, but with the scare employment opportunities in Turkey, he cannot afford to quit.
Fikret spends his days walking past drivers in traffic jams, attempting to sell beautiful roses, but, seemingly, without success. His flower business is in fact illegal, and so he attempts to get a job in a café, but his lethargic manner and nonchalant approach result in him being fired. He is 17; we see him hanging out with his friends and singing out-of-key Turkish hits, we see him smoking and being generally unproductive, and we see him rummaging in dustbins for useful objects to sell or consume.
Murat is an easygoing traffic policeman who likes to explore the world of internet dating in his spare time. Using online messaging to find girls, he is awkwardly persistent; sometimes he meets them in real life but never achieves relationship status. He finds the city intimidating and misses his cosy village and family.
The three men remain oblivious to the interconnection of their lives, barely overlapping or merging the film’s three separate dialogues, and yet they unknowingly cross paths every day on the same bridge. The film spends 87 minutes detailing the lives of these characters, and presenting their daily struggle, with little money and few prospects…
The film makes use of a handheld camera and avoids including an accompanying soundtrack, portraying Men On The Bridge as more of a documentary than a fictional drama. The real-life Umut, Cemile and Fikret play themselves and Murat’s brother plays him due to a Turkish law which prevents police from appearing in films. Having never acted before, the use of the authentic characters facilitates the realism already implied through the camera techniques. There is not much to say for the performances; they are neither good nor bad, they are just very real.
The dialogue is loosely scripted, but is often improvised and natural; there is little visual aid in terms of stylistic effects – thus it is unclear whether the compassionate subtlety of the finished product is due to the director’s talent or simply because of the humbly honest settings. The barely fabricated script is unlike the majority of films, leaving Men On The Bridge somewhat in the hands of the viewer’s response to real life.
The unobtrusive and fruitless lives of the three protagonists give the film a depressing outlook, as nothing is embellished and gaps of conversational pause or directionless actions are left un-edited. The characters, therefore, appear constantly apathetic due to Ozge’s reluctance to tamper with the truth, which leaves the viewer lacking in emotional participation. The characters’ working-class efforts to survive in a frantic city environment can be universally empathised with, but the fusion of authenticity and simplicity also invites an element of alienation. Luckily, her directorial intuition chooses the appropriate moment to change scene in order to deter the intervention of boredom.
There is an interesting parallel between the gridlocked cars on the bridge and the socially halted lives of Ozge’s characters. Nobody is progressing and Ozge has captured this overtly and metaphorically, whether intentional or not. Her empathetically attentive eye has liberated the unknown and modest lifestyles of real people, thus resulting in a rewarding snapshot of life. She presents the characters in an unbiased manner, allowing their prejudices and difficulties to be exposed without being exploited: the accepted sexism of a Turkish man, the pointless focus on consumerism in a place where money and work are equally sparse.
Turkish cinema doesn’t often have the chance to showcase films outside its border, so it is interesting to catch a glimpse of this lifelike docu-drama, which is a true representation of regular citizens and the artificial promises of their country. There is an undeniable force present in the starkness of Men On The Bridge, but its detached plot and slow pace means that it just falls short of being labelled profound. NM
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