Once Upon A Time In Anatolia

Nuri Bilge Ceylan has written and directed this creepy thriller that sheds light on a strange association of the law-enforcers and a murder-suspect in the dead of the night, as they together embark on a mission to excavate the dead body of the suspect’s victim. As the film opens, we see a prosecutor, a police commissioner, a doctor and a murder-suspect drive down through the dangerous Anatolian countryside. The car slowly moves on to the snake like roads with its headlights as the only source of illumination.

As the plot, eventually reveals, the murder suspect was taken along as per orders of the court as a part of the case of a brutal murder carried out by the same person. They were trying locate the corpse that according to the suspect had been buried somewhere on those serpentine roads of the Anatolian countryside. The entire movie focuses on that single night, and the truths that are revealed as the four sink deeper into their search mission. The suspect admits that he was drunk on the night of the murder, and as a reason, he could not remember the place, where he had exactly buried the body.

As the night stretches on to its last patch, the suspect is cross-questioned and in the process a lot of important information that they had missed out earlier surfaced. The unexpected comes is front, as it feels as if there is much more to the story than a murderer lamely leading cops to his victim’s buried dead body. Secrets and hypocrisies of the investigators come to light that promises to unpack the crime in a different light, altogether. The Anatolian Steppes had provided the much needed shady background to the drive, the conversations and the confrontations in the film that are nuts and bolts to the film’s structure.