Winter Sleep

A man’s grandiosity proves to be his unraveling in this observant drama that is as epic as it is intimate. An actor who has returned home to a small village in Central Anatolia’s Cappadocia region, Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) runs his family’s tourist hotel and manages its landholdings. He also holds himself up as the area’s moral authority, not just in the hectoring columns he writes for the local newspaper, but in his relations with his sister Necla (Demet Akbag); his beautiful, much younger wife Nihal (Melisa Sözen); and especially with a local imam, Hamdi (Serhat Mustafa Kiliç). A rock thrown by Hamdi’s young nephew at Aydin’s truck incites a war with his tenants, but also serves as the first of several blows to Aydin’s enormous self-regard. This winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or and its FIPRESCI Prize plays out in long conversations and fevered arguments that expose Aydin’s pomposity and his utter ignorance of the world outside the confines of his richly appointed study. Cappadocia’s gorgeous vistas, its steppes, snowy panoramas and singular architecture, stunningly photographed by cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki, provide the perfect backdrop for Ceylan’s rich, character-driven drama. —Pam Grady