Over the past decade director-writer Emin Alper has been making challenging films that thoughtfully explore a variety of uncomfortable issues stemming from right-wing politics, patriarchal oppression, and environmental disasters, all of which he deftly brings together in the gripping investigative drama Burning Days. From the terrifically controlled opening three shots to the breathless final image, the film takes us on a sordid journey through the rotting core of a small Turkish town, where a young prosecutor is sucked into a rape investigation tied to the local political elite. With a disturbing undercurrent of violence and unexpected yet superbly handled homoeroticism, Burning Days should set distributor buzz ablaze.
Alper’s political engagement has always been front and center, and while his penultimate feature Frenzy was an excoriating look at state control, his latest shows the power process in a more real and insidious light through a story that frequently has a Western feel in which a well-intentioned lawman arrives in a corrupt small town where his ethical core is compromised. Together with cinematographer Christos Karamanis (Suntan), Alper’s found an impactful visual style that underscores the tense narrative in frequently gripping ways.
A superb example comes immediately after the first trio of fixed frames, when celebratory gunshots signal a change of tone and the camera energetically follows townsmen in cars hunting down a wild boar that wandered onto the streets. The boisterousness culminates in an overhead shot of the blood streak smearing the road as a tractor drags the animal’s carcass through Yaniklar (not a real place).
It’s an ominous start and an event that doesn’t please clean-cut prosecutor Emre Gündüz (Selahattin Pasali), just assigned to the central Turkish town despite a clear lack of affinity with its inhabitants. Local lawyer Sahin Öztürk (Erol Babaoglu) and dentist Kemal (Erdem Senocak), avid hunters, pay Emre a visit, projecting an overly cheerful friendship designed to feel out the newcomer. The scene turns into a nuanced game of cat and mouse as Emre lets them think they’re winning him over and then metaphorically slaps them down by firmly stating that shooting guns in town is against the law. The prosecutor thinks he’s got the upper hand, not realizing that Sahin’s father is the mayor and an entrenched populist up for reelection.
Summer heat and the uncontrolled extraction of underground springs means water is being rationed, so Emre goes to a nearby lake to cool off; while bathing naked he’s surprised by Murat (Ekin Koç), owner of the opposition newspaper, whose ambiguous presence takes Emre off-guard. The tension between the two is immediate, though viewers will likely be guessing whether they’re correctly interpreting a sexual pull which is indeed there, in spades. Emre isn’t sure what to make of Murat, a mystery man come to warn him that the lake sands are dangerous. The newspaperman also mentions that the last prosecutor was threatened with poison and looked very pale before his disappearance.
The film’s set piece is an extended dinner scene of nightmarish dimensions, when Emre goes to Sahin’s home and despite initial resistance allows himself to be plied with raki that turns out to be spiked. By the time a mentally challenged Roma woman nicknamed Pekmez (Eylül Ersöz) wanders in, things are becoming foggy: Emre wakes up from a drug-induced haze in Murat’s home, uncertain how he got there and with a large hickey on his neck. Later that day he learns that Pekmez is in the hospital after a brutal rape and of course he has Sahin and Kemal arrested, but Sahin says the prosecutor also participated. Throughout the remainder of the movie, Emre gradually recovers – or seems to recover – snippets of memory which create a conundrum, since either he too raped Pekmez in his drugged state or he had sex with Murat (or possibly both).
The backdrop to all this is the sudden appearance of large sinkholes in the area, which Murat knows is caused by draining the groundwater but the mayor and his cronies contend is merely an unfortunate natural phenomenon. The reason for the cover-up is that providing water to the populace is the easiest way of getting their votes, so environment be damned. Alper’s target here is unmistakably Turkey’s ruling AKP Party though there are parallels with many right-wing populist governments (Brazil and Madagascar come to mind) blithely destroying the environment for short-term gain. Murat’s fight for the truth together with his bisexuality make him an easy scapegoat for the ruling cabal, which sweeps Emre in both by association and his search for a truth, all of which leads inexorably to a heart-thumping finale.
Casting is perfect in the way physical types contrast with each other, the handsome smoothness of Emre and Murat setting them apart from the rougher-featured Yaniklar locals. Selahattin Pasali (Midnight at the Pera Palace) expertly conveys the prosecutor’s projection of superior intelligence masking troubling uncertainties, while Ekin Koç exudes a knowing sex appeal that makes their scenes together so potent.
Small details are shrewdly built upon to increase the sense of malicious forces at work, helped enormously by judicious editing by Özcan Vardar and Eytan Ipeker. Visually the film is Alper’s most accomplished work to date, notable both for Karamanis’ always satisfying framing as well as clever flashback sequences that continually question what did and didn’t happen.
Director: Emin Alper
Screenplay: Emin Alper
Cast: Selahattin Pasali, Ekin Koç, Selin Yeninci, Erol Babaoglu, Erdem Senocak, Selin Yeninci, Sinan Demirer, Eylül Ersöz, Ali Seçkiner Alici
Producers: Nadir Öperli, Kerem Çatay
Co-producers: Fatih Sakiz, Laurent Lavolé, Viola Fügen, Michael Weber, Stienette Bosklopper,
Maarten Swart, Yorgos Tsourgiannis, Anita Juka
Cinematography: Christos Karamanis
Production designer: Nadide Argun
Costume designer: Öykü Ersoy
Editing: Özcan Vardar, Eytan Ipeker
Music: Stefan Will
Sound: Krešimir Rodic
Production companies: Ay Yapim (Turkey), Liman Film (Turkey), Gloria Films (France), Match Factory Productions (Germany), Circe Films (The Netherlands), Horsefly Productions (Greece), 4 Films (Turkey), Zola Yapim (Turkey), in Association with ERT
World sales: The Match Factory
Venue: Cannes (Un certain regard)
In Turkish
130 minutes
