Istanbul International Film Festival Full Review

April 3 began the Istanbul International Film Festival, marking the first time I’ve attended such an event. Naturally I feel inclined to document my experiences here.

The first day included my first film, a South Korean thriller called “Mother.” Its focus is a nearly destitute old woman whose mentally disabled son is accused of murdering a teenage girl. She spends the movie investigating the crime to prove her son’s innocence, whatever the costs.

The film excels at balancing a few different genres. As a thriller it’s effectively suspenseful. As a murder mystery it isn’t explosive, but the basic plot is arresting enough to keep the film moving. It’s most rewarding as a character study. Externally this mother has to overcome prejudices against her—she is old, female, and poor. Internally she has a struggle between her moral sanity and her love and loyalty toward her son. The film doesn’t lionize the mother’s efforts to protect her son. The character has deep demons, which vary from strange to dangerous and disturbing.

The film’s theme comes from an officer investigating the girl’s murder: “Anyone can kill.” The characters aren’t singularly good or evil.They are constrained by external circumstances, and within those circumstances they make unpredictable decisions, rooted in passion, loyalty, or stupidity. Once an evil is committed, a person goes on living in one of three ways: deciding to not care, not being able to remember, or choosing to forget. This film offers people doing all three.

UPDATE—April 6

April 5 I had two films at opposite ends of the day, giving me a perfect opportunity to prepare for my upcoming exams in the middle.Sadly, the time I spent studying was about as enjoyable as my cumulative time in movie theaters (although I do really like politics in developing countries).

The morning feature, “Medal of Honor,” is a Romanian film about an old man in Bucharest who is estranged from his son, and not often spoken to by his wife. After he receives a medal from the Romanian government for his military service, he forges a new identity as a patriot and example for his local community, hoping that this medal can revive his relationship with his family. Eventually, we see this identity fall apart in the face of a modern world.

The film has several layers of symbolism. Ion’s medal gives him some amount of meaning, which is largely illusory—he allows himself to believe his life has been something special. The director parallels medal with statues of Communist soldiers and the Palace of the Parliament that were once built to bring pride and a belief of self-worth to the Romanian people. In the modern world, however, these monuments—and Ion’s medal—are transparently political and false.

Ion himself is a metaphor for Romania’s experience with nationalism and pride; when Ion finally realizes the triviality of his medal, one can sense the sadness of a country suddenly faced with its own small size and insignificance. One such moment occurs when he tries speaking to his 4 year-old grandson who lives in Canada. Unable to understand the child, Ion confusedly asks his son, “What do you mean he doesn’t speak Romanian?”

“Medal of Honor” is a little dry and long for my taste, but I won’t take away from its humor and skillful characterization.

The night showing was a French film from 1969, “A Night with Maud.” It follows a young Catholic man with interests in two women, one a young blonde in his congregation, on whom he projects his images of innocence and virginity. The other, Maud, tries to seduce him on a night of philosophical back-and-forth.

The film is successful in two regards. One, like many French movies of the 1960s, it’s highly intelligent with interesting dialogue and complex characters. More like real life, these characters converse in ways that reveal how they want to be perceived, but not who they really are. Likewise, the contrast between the young blonde woman and Maud is blurred by the end of the film, revealing the naiveté of the main character—and the audience.

However, also like many European movies, the philosophical discussion in which the director wishes to engage his audience is overwhelming to the characters and the story. The characters periodically feel more like mouthpieces of the director than autonomous characters. This ultimately undermines their humanity. I prefer the more American or British aesthetic, in which an author presents his or her worldview or ideology embedded in the story and the characters. It’s a difference of style, toward which I carry a strong prejudice.

UPDATE—April 11

Thursday night brought Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg,” which surprisingly came with a free glass of whiskey—good start. A friend I convinced to come along asked me what the film was about. I told him that Baumbach makes independent films with famous actors. His movies are thoughtful, but not intellectual. As it turns out, I had successfully reviewed “Greenberg” before seeing it.

In “Greenberg” Ben Stiller plays a self-involved man in his forties who is “trying to do nothing right now”—talk about an indie plot. He reunites with friends—with whom he has a rocky history—and starts a romance with his brother’s personal assistant, played by Greta Gerwig.

Gerwig’s extremely natural and communicative acting is the highlight of the film. Frankly, Gerwig’s success might work against the film, since her romance with Greenberg seems so unfair. I personally don’t like the prospect that these two characters might continue a relationship beyond the closing credits.

Baumbach’s characterization of Greenberg is most successful when the character is filmed in normal social situations that he can’t handle—a birthday party or a barbecue. Also interesting are his occasional tirades against those close to him. Least interesting—and most cliché—is his everyday life, in which he writes letters of complaint to various companies and politicians while reminiscing about when his band could have made it big, but didn’t—how many movies have older men in existential crises reaching out to their musical roots? E.g. “Stranger than Fiction” and “The Visitor.”

“Greenberg” is entertaining and at moments it’s surprisingly sweet, but the two main characters are too imbalanced, and Greenberg is the kind of character that previous indie movies have covered.

Saturday night I watched “Collapse,” a documentary in which former LAPD cop Michael Ruppert gives his various arguments for why the world is headed for disaster.

Ruppert’s primary argument is that the supply of oil—necessary for plastics, growing food, transportation, electricity, etc.—is running out.But humans today live in an economic model based on infinite production and infinite growth. This contradiction spells the end of human society living the way we do. From this he makes many side arguments about various governments and world events.

The interesting thing about Ruppert—who lacks educational degrees in the areas he discusses, but has given lectures all over the world—is that the audience can’t quite peg whether he’s a radical nut conspiracy theorist or not. He says his wife was a CIA plant and that the government tried to have him killed. Crazy conspiracy theorist? Check. But he also claims to have had sixty members of Congress subscribing to his now-defunct newsletter. More importantly, the foundation of his argument seems to be logical theoretically and scientifically. From this foundation he makes riffs that may be extremist or alarmist, but even if he’s only 60% right, the audience leaves the theater extremely worried.

As documentarians, the filmmakers never question Ruppert enough. Two or three times they offer counter-arguments and ask for a response, but they’re clearly not trying to push Ruppert or look at his arguments critically. I would have been more interested in seeing Ruppert have to defend his views against someone equally knowledgeable in the data and policy, rather than some filmmakers feigning skepticism.

UPDATE—April 18

The next two films I viewed each had the filmmakers on hand to briefly introduce their films and answer questions. The first of these was “The Last Station,” which stars Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, and James McAvoy in the last days of Russian writer Leo Tolsoty. The central plot of the film is actually the conflict between Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, and her husband’s most loyal disciple over the rights to Tolstoy’s writings—her inheritance or the common property of every Russian idealist? Paralleling the older love story between Tolstoy and Sophia is a more youthful one between two of Tolstoy’s followers.

Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren are predictably endearing as an old couple that loves fiercely and fights even more fiercely. Helen Mirren makes Sophia simultaneously calculating and maddeningly manipulative but surprisingly sympathetic.

The film borrows much of its tone, and especially its music, from 2005’s “Pride and Prejudice,” but it’s not as good. The film’s largest weak spot is the obligatory love story between McAvoy and another Tolstoyan. First they argue. Then she for some reason sleeps with him. Then he decides he loves her, but she’s not cool with that. In less than thirty seconds of dialogue he changes her mind, and from then on it’s clear they’ll be together forever. That’s thinner than the celluloid it was printed on.

Still, “The Last Station” is entertaining, involving, and executed without any major errors. And according to the director, the Tolstoy family liked it too.

The apex of the festival came with “Lebanon,” the film I had been most excited to see. The autobiographical story of a tank crew that gets lost behind enemy lines in the First Lebanon War won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and of course Israeli wars are currently topical (aren’t they always?)

The entire film takes place within a dark, dirty, and claustrophobic tank with four Israeli soldiers and a Syrian prisoner inside. I personally would have appreciated a better understanding of the tank interior, but the director leaves it in darkness, only filming the symbolic black-oiled gears and wheels that confine the characters. Everything in the outside world is only seen through the gunner’s scope—every character is literally a target. Most of the film also takes place in something like real-time, which adds realism and keeps the audience tense. This contrasts with other war films like “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Hurt Locker,” where violence is episodic and therefore allows the audience to take a breath.

The most relevant character arc is Samuel’s (supposedly the director thirty years ago). He enters the tank scared and impotent, and of course finds his courage over the course of the film. There’s one scene of character development that feels contrived and out of place. The director should have either distributed depth throughout the film or just kept the movie moving with two-dimensional characters.

The director’s anti-war message is also overt. Zoom-ins of suffering civilians, a lingering shot on a mother who can’t find her child, a donkey slowly dying on the side of the road. These shots seem like heartfelt apologies from the director to the victims he’s been seeing in his head for decades, but within the film they are condescending to the audience—we get it, war is Hell.. There’s also an occasional reliance on clichés, like the no-nonsense commander and the tank leader going crazy in a manner that too heavy handedly recalls Colonel Kurtz.

“Lebanon” is a powerful film and it’s economically told. Even so, in this case less would have been more.

Finally, in the last day of the festival I found my way to three last films. The first of these was a “A Brand New Life,” an autobiographical story of a South Korean girl, Jinhi, who is left at an orphanage and her various struggles to fit in and deal with her anger.

“A Brand New Life” is a perfectly adequate film, and at times it’s certainly touching. Anyone can understand Jinhi’s pain of rejection. But the film adds nothing beyond what one would expect of a story about a girl in an orphanage. Jinhi first doesn’t trust anyone until she makes a best friend, who eventually gets adopted. Then Jinhi goes through phases of demanding her father’s return, breaking the other children’s dolls, and unsuccessfully burying herself alive. Jinhi is basically just angry, and that eventually gets old.

“A Brand New Life” carried no offensive flaws, but the entire film I found myself wondering why the director thought her own story was unique or important. It wasn’t.

A much more problematic film for criticism and analysis was my penultimate feature, “Mr. Nobody.” “Mr. Nobody” follows Nemo, mostly played by Jared Leto, at various ages and living multiple different lives. The different paths revolve around a few key moments. Does he choose to live with Mom or Dad? Does he marry Anna, Jean, or Elise? Does he live until 2092, or die in a lake?

The film recalls “Donnie Darko” in its references to string theory and time reversal mixed with the drama of the central character. Personally, I don’t think it all connects, and I think the director is more pleased with his intelligence than the audience is, but maybe I’m just stupid—perhaps a cult following that is already setting up websites and a newsletter will set out to prove me wrong.

On a more cinematic level, the narrative structure of a main character who leads multiple lives makes him a difficult person with whom to sympathize or relate. This detachment from the character might be revocable with a superior actor, but Jared Leto only brings blue eyes, not talent.

The ending of the film seems to tie these loose ends together in a surprisingly effective fashion. But I’m not entirely convinced, and the ride wasn’t really worth the pay-off.

My final film was “Dog Tooth,” about three siblings raised by their mother and father in a brutal exercise of false consciousness. For whatever reason, these parents have taught their children that they cannot ever go outside of the family’s enclosed property. They only watch family videos. Their parents have conditioned them to use language incorrectly—calling salt “telephone” and a yellow flower “zombie.” The father even hires a woman to come and satisfy the children sexually.

The reason for the children’s conditioning is not given, nor are the details all that important. The point is they have been effectively deluded from living in what the rest of us have been conditioned to perceive as the real and true world. On the one hand I was fascinated by how plausible it would be for a family like this to exist. Isolated from the rest of the world, what would people do? What could you make them do? This is the director I would want to ask a lot of questions. Primary for me would be what whether his story is metaphorical, and if so for what? Greece’s military junta? The world system? His own feelings about how he was raised?

Admittedly, the film closely resembles Michael Haneke’s work, which seems unnecessary considering Haneke has remade one of his own films already.

“Dog Tooth” was an intelligent film that gave me more questions than answers, which I greatly appreciated.

With my first film festival behind me, I can say I was very satisfied. I didn’t get the rare pleasure of watching any singularly great films, but almost everything seemed to belong in a list of movies worth seeing. American films did stick out as being the most entertaining, but fortunately I wasn’t forced to sit through any “art” films that test one’s pulse more than their attention span. I’m glad that I have been able to take advantage of one aspect of living in a cosmopolitan city like Istanbul—it might be my last film festival for a long time.

Ranking the films of the Istanbul International Film Festival:

1. Dog Tooth
2. Mother
3. Medal of Honor
4. Lebanon
5. Greenberg
6. A Night with Maud
7. The Last Station
8. Collapse
9. A Brand New Life
10. Mr. Nobody

Teaching Methods in Turkey

Last week I had a disagreement with my professor. She was arguing that since Haiti hadn’t developed under neo-liberal policies of the Washington Consensus, we might conclude that developing countries shouldn’t adopt neo-liberalism. I didn’t defend neo-liberalism, but I gave some convoluted comment that Haiti’s unemployment, corruption, and political instability were too insurmountable for any development policy to succeed. I eventually clarified: “I think that any policy path that Haiti followed could only lead to varying levels of failure,” a view which my professor called “very dark.”

This was as close to a discussion as I’ve come in most of my seven political science classes at Boğaziçi University. My professors here are probably more well-educated and more talented than my teachers at Arizona State University. But they’re generally not better teachers.

To explain this point, I’ll classify my teachers into four categories: Egalitarian Facilitators, Structured and Participation-based Lecturers, the Charismatic Professors, and the Uncharismatic Lecturers.

My best educational experiences have come from Egalitarian Facilitators. These teachers, inspired by a romantic Socratic tradition, often emphasize to their students, “I really don’t know anything.” They make students sit in a circle and then sit down next to us, rather than standing at the front of the room. The class discusses ideas, from which important points organically emerge. Students get to know each other’s ideas better, and teachers can better gauge what ideas have connected and which ones haven’t.

I haven’t looked into it, but I assume this style is better for retention. Active discussion or debate will make the class and the ideas more memorable. I’ve often left such classes still arguing with the other students in my head. There’s also social pressure to learn and present one’s ideas in an organized, coherent, and persuasive fashion. Indeed, in those instances where I make a fool of myself in a class discussion, my ego drives me to learn the material even better.

Unfortunately, I have not had any classes like this at Boğaziçi University, although I have heard they exist. Perhaps the reason more professors don’t use this strategy is that it’s high risk. For instance one of my Global Studies professors at ASU invited class discussion and tried to be casual with the students. But he actually didn’t know anything. It was a problem.

The second category is Structured and Participation-based Lecturers. These professors cling to their role as the teacher, rather than a “first among equals” position, but they recognize the value of student discussion and comments. Class discussion is an addendum to the lecture, if necessary.

Two of my younger professors here at Boğaziçi employ this style almost identically. Both use power-point presentations that communicate the broad strokes, and then they draw in the details themselves. At the end, or intermittently throughout the lecture, the teachers will ask if there are any questions. It’s sometimes a discussion or sometimes a test of who’s been paying attention.

Importantly, these tenders for questions are often met with silence. My Turkish classmates seem loathe to participate, and my impression is that many don’t do the readings. Often exchange students, though an extreme minority in the class, make up a majority of the class discussion. If I were one of these professors, I would be skeptical of using the Egalitarian Facilitation approach.

The third category is that of the Charismatic Professor. He or she is an expert from upon high. I do not mind this approach at all, as long as the professor is moderately entertaining and truly an expert.

At Arizona State this approach was used by my National Security professor. He spoke clearly, concisely, and fairly about US foreign policy and national security in the late twentieth century. Two of my professors at Boğaziçi also belong in this category, including my professor for Turkish Politics, who is also the chair of the department. He’s a dynamic speaker. He makes jokes (usually in Turkish sadly) and even uses profanity. He lectures on very big ideas in a way that guarantees retention. That said, his lectures are highly repetitive and unwieldy—he could benefit from a little more of the structured and participation-based method.

I think that many a doctoral candidate dreams of being the charismatic professor. It’s a position of power and prestige, and it promises a payoff similar to a recital or a monologue. But only some have the talent to actually be a charismatic professor.

Those that fail in this regard fall into the lowly fourth category—the Uncharismatic Lecturer. This speaker may well be an expert, but regardless he or she is unable to communicate and educate.

This often entails a specific deficiency in public speaking. For example, my first political science professor at ASU used an impossibly slow rate of speech. He told long stories to explain twenty-second ideas. I would hear the beginning of a sentence, anticipate where it was going, work a little on my Sudoku puzzle, and return my attention just as he concluded.

Sadly, I have had several professors like this at Boğaziçi, including a teacher whose sentences are so long that by the time she finishes her thought its beginning could be published in history books. In one class period I counted the number of words she used in seven randomly chosen sentences. The shortest had 90 words, while the longest had 170. Never in my life have I used a sentence with 170 words. There are probably fewer than ten people in the world with this same affliction. It would be the equivalent of converting this entire blog post to nine sentences. Following her is a feat of patience, focus, and intelligence. Two hours would kill lesser beings.

For Uncharismatic Lecturers, I recommend they switch to the structured and participation-based lecture method. A power-point presentation with bullet points at least gives students a chance of getting back into the lecture when their minds wander. If students are encouraged to participate, topics of interest to the students are more likely to come up, and the monotony is at least occasionally disrupted.

For those teachers who successfully use structured and participation-based lectures, I encourage them to experiment more with the approach of Egalitarian Facilitation. Even in Boğaziçi, where many of the students enter and leave class speaking no words in between, I believe that this method could work. A friend attends a seminar where the students can speak in Turkish, and he says jokes and intelligent points abound. Another friend has a German professor who encourages class presentations and discussion. Apparently the students operate fine with these expectations.

Broadly speaking, my American teachers more often fall in the first three categories, including several extremely good experiences with Egalitarian Facilitation. My Turkish teachers are more likely to fall into the final three, and my best teachers here use the Structured and Participation-based teaching method. Especially now that I’m leaving Turkey soon and I have already registered for next semester’s classes at ASU, I am acutely aware of how much I will miss Istanbul, Boğaziçi, and Turkey. But I will be quite glad to be back with American teachers.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is a terrible movie for several reasons.

First, the story transparently replicates The Chronicles of Narnia and other recent fantasy films. In the third act when the forces of the White Queen and the Red Queen are preparing to war over Wonderland, one doesn’t feel like they’re watching an epic and important event. There’s no emotional attachment to the White Queen, nor to the freedom of Wonderland itself. Likewise, the audience doesn’t feel any real enmity toward the Red Queen. She’s idiosyncratic and humorous, nothing worse. Of course fantasy films must have a conclusive final battle in which good defeats evil, so Tim Burton obliges.

Second, Johnny Depp’s performance, like most of his work with Tim Burton, is a stunt and a waste of talent. His performance as Hatter lacks all depth beyond oddity. Johnny Depp is a genuinely talented actor who has made himself a commodity of quirkiness, and his final dance scene is a profoundly embarrassing blemish on his career. Personally, I hope Johnny Depp and Tim Burton never work together again. This pair once made the masterful and enchanting Ed Wood, which makes their combined failures in the last decade all the more disappointing.

Many will laud the film’s visual effects and creative set design, but after Middle-Earth, Hogwarts, Narnia, and Pandora, Wonderland was nothing special.

Finally, Alice in Wonderland’s ending is painfully ignorant. Alice saves the tabula rasa world of Wonderland, and then decides to expand her father’s company to China. She even explains that this shouldn’t be difficult from their “foothold” in Hong Kong. History students will recall the Opium Wars and the Unequal Treaties, events by which British merchants—like Alice—effectively brought ruin to China, home to many of the world’s greatest empires. Good thing she saved Wonderland. Now to destroy a real country.

It’s been a long time since Ed Wood and Beetle Juice. Tim Burton may only have movies like Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory left in him. This looks to be the case considering his next project is a remake of his own short film, Frankenweenie. If so, he should never make a movie again, and he should also stop ruining Johnny Depp’s career.

Smokers and Climate Change Deniers

Watching a soccer game at a Turkish bar reliably produces one moment of happiness—even if neither team scores. When the halftime whistle blows, all the young men clear their chairs and go outside to smoke. So few people remain inside—where it’s been illegal to smoke since 2009—you’d think someone called in a bomb threat.

Smoking is alarmingly common here, with 60% of Turkish men declaring themselves regular smokers. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization lists Turkey as the world’s seventh largest producer of cigarettes, and the eighth largest market for consumption. Indeed, an Italian classmate told me that a common phrase for heavy smokers in Europe is that they are “smoking like a Turk.”

There’s some ugly reasons for this high level of consumption. “Anti-smoking groups say international cigarette companies in the past picked the Middle East as a key market and distributed free cigarettes to promote them.” Likewise, the Turkish Temperance Society says that tobacco companies introduced higher-nicotine, shorter cigarettes in Turkey in anticipation of 2009’s smoking ban. When I first read this I filed it into my voluminous, ever-growing mental cabinet of Turkish conspiracy theories. But actually in November of 2007 Phillip Morris International really did introduce “Marlboro Intense Cigarettes” to Turkey. I suppose nothing is beyond an industry that has tobacco vending machines in Japan.

There is some good news. Turkey’s smoking rate is increasing by between 1% and 1.5% every year, whereas the rest of the developing world averages an annual increase of 3.4%, according to the World Health Organization's smoking statistics from 2002.

This is quite a culture shock for a student from the United States. Consumption of cigarettes in the US has decreased by half since the mid-1960s, such that now approximately 23.9% of American men and 18% of American women are regular smokers. I suspect that many members of my generation were effectively brainwashed by dozens of hours of DARE programs and PE classes dedicated to proving smoking’s lethal abilities—I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life.

In a recent Brookings Institution Report, Hakan Altinay, an alumnus of my political science department here at Boğaziçi University, used the metaphor of global smoking to discuss climate change. Over a billion people in the world continue to smoke cigarettes despite the high likelihood that this will decrease their future quality of life, and possibly kill them. Likewise, over a billion people (at least a hundred million or so living in the United States) seem willing to continue current patterns of consumption and carbon emission despite the strong evidence that this will decrease their future quality of life, and possibly kill them. In both cases, people ignore evidence (often with the help of embedded interests) and defer a high cost now for a much higher probable cost in the future. To make matters worse, these people are voters.

When I see Turkish men file out of the bar to light up, I have many feelings. The cultural difference and the physical comedy of everyone leaving entertains me. I feel a little disgusted—all of those people smell like ashtrays. And I feel a bit of condescension. My government effectively spent tax revenue to train me that smoking was bad while these Turks, for whatever reason, did not find this healthier, better smelling path.

But I also imagine what a Turk feels when they see a road of Ford Explorers with one person in the driver’s seat, dozens of golf courses in the desert, and heaps of trash bags on the curbsides. We have our equally disgusting and unenlightened patterns.

At least Turkish smokers are mainly hurting themselves. By contrast, our willing destruction of the earth will mostly hurt millions of other people, particularly in developing countries like Turkey.