A noir-tinged murder mystery that becomes a cryptic fable about memory and guilt, temporal slippage and creeping social breakdown, Kerr is the latest unorthodox thriller from Turkish visual artist, author, screenwriter and film-maker Tayfun Pirselimoglu. Adapting his own 2014 novel, Pirselimoglu shoots his seventh feature with a mix of deadpan minimalism and tragicomic absurdism, recalling fellow Turkish directors like Nuri Bilge Ceylan but also Greek “Weird Wave” figureheads such as Yorgos Lanthimos and wry Scandi-gloom maestros like Aki Kaurismaki. After winning the Best Director prize at Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival last week, this atmospheric Turkish-Greek-French co-production also screens in competition in Warsaw this week. Further festivals and art-house platforms should take an interest.
Kerr takes place in a remote, nameless, ramshackle town in the damp depths of winter. As he prepares to depart following his father’s funeral, Can (Erdem Senocak) witnesses a stranger being murdered at the railway station. The craggy, saturnine killer (Riza Akin) seems eerily nonchalant about being observed, coolly acknowledging his onlooker before slipping away into the night. When Can reports the crime to the local police, they appear oddly unconcerned about the death, and more interested in the mundane details of Can’s life. They caution him not to leave town.
Stranded in this snowy purgatory for an indefinite spell, Can is visited by the dead man’s estranged widow (Jale Arikan), who tells the out-of-town visitor that she nursed his sick father during his final days. A Lynchian gallery of grotesques including a suspicious cafe owner, a dealer in prosthetic limbs and the host of a surreal cabaret club all seem strangely keen to hear how closely Can observed the murder. With a nod to Kafka, one of the townsfolk warns him that he is under confidential investigation and soon to be arrested. “Everything is bizarre here,” another explains, “even the weather is strange.”
This strangeness moves into high gear after the killer visits Can in his father’s old tailoring store, oozing unspoken menace while making no mention of their previous encounter. Can then follows the fugitive to a vast, crumbling modernist building, where he has a furtive assignation with the dead man’s widow. But any attempt to make sense of this jumbled jigsaw puzzle of clues is soon overtaken by larger developments, with reports of lethally dangerous dogs on the loose, and mysterious deep holes appearing all across town. As the authorities impose curfews and quarantines, armed vigilante gangs begin policing the streets, shooting violators. Can appears to be trapped in a sinister Groundhog Day, where events loop and echo, but nobody can ever leave.
Compelling as mystery thriller, if frustratingly opaque as crime procedural, Kerr works better as allegorical fable than as straight drama. Turkish viewers may pick up on particular political resonances related to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian regime, although Pirselimoglu’s source novel predates Erdogan’s presidency. The plot certainly feels more timeless and universal than specific. Even if the fatalistic gloom becomes a little relentless in places, it is leavened with macabre humour, flavoursome characters and austere visual poetry.
Mostly adhering to a formal grammar of static medium shots and slow zooms, stark compositions and muted winter colours, cinematographer Andreas Sinanos exhibits a strong eye for symbolic decay, underscoring the story’s sense of imminent collapse with painterly tableaux of ruined interiors, rusty old cars and a striking semi-derelict fairground. A vertiginous grand-scale visual effects shot in the film’s closing stages proves particularly effective after the restraint that Pirselimoglu has shown so far, conjuring up an impressively acute sense of society in dystopian freefall with only limited resources. Kerr offers a rarefied brand of bleak fun, but it is never less than gripping.
Director, screenwriter: Tayfun Pirselimoglu
Cast: Erdem Senocak, Jale Arikan, Riza Akin, Ali Seçkiner, Gafur Uzuner, Melih Düzenli, Sinan Bengier
Producer: Vildan Ersen
Cinematography: Andreas Sinanos
Editing: Ali Aga
Music: Nikos Kypourgos
Art director: Natali Yeres
Production companies: Gataki Films (Turkey), Bad Crowd (Greece), Arizona Productions (France)
Venue: Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival
In Turkish
101 minutes
