It seems that the first half of Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da was great in every sense, it was like Nuri Bilge Ceylan, his wife and his friends or his crew had attempted some new editing methods and some ideas escort it and they have delivered it successfully. There is a mysterious and sometimes creepy story, the cast is exciting, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's direction and photography are the same as always, great, the editing is flawless, but a few flaws in the script and the last half of the film prevent it from being a masterpiece. Nuri Bilge Ceylan knows the fact that only a beautiful photography and mesmerizing images are not enough to make a movie good, at least I hope he does, because simply a good movie is a combination of a lot of elements. Therefore, this time he put much more dialogs in his movie, which support the characters and the film itself. We can say that the movie is divided into two parts, night and day, so the night part is excellent, there are some unforgettable shots also, briefly an unforgettable cinematic and artistic journey, but when the movie comes to the end, the problems start to occur as well. The second half starts by an excavation sequence, a few village shots and events follow it, so far so good, but then a long, very long 'medical' sequence (I used that term to avoid spoilers) starts which ruins the movie sort of. There are several reasons for that. Firstly, that sequence should have been the development part or should be just a transition part instead of being the final part. If we consider the 'night part' (the first half) as the introduction, then the second half ('the day part') should have been the development, it means, there should have been a conclusion part, in other words, a third part should have been added and the movie should have been a little longer (for example 180 minutes, a complete three hours) However, then the movie would have been too long for some people? All these are because I felt like the movie was incomplete after a very, very long introduction. I would want to see Yılmaz Erdoğan's character more on the screen for example. Honestly, I would want to see some other characters more on the screen after that "exhausting night and day". Especially their psychological conditions after the event. By the way, about Yılmaz Erdoğan's character, may be the character's personality is not very suitable for Yılmaz Erdoğan's character, himself, but that's OK. Secondly, after a very detailed and very long introduction part (the first half, 90 minutes), the second half was like just a long sequence rather than a satisfied second half. This was the key problem of the film! Like the director's previous film, Three Monkeys, Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da suffers from 'plot insufficiency' in the second half. Two or three scenes or sequences become the development and the conclusion. Because, too much focus on this medical event by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. And thirdly, Nuri Bilge Ceylan gets his movie ended by an aversive and highly disturbing final and I have no idea why he has done that! What were all those sounds and nauseous moments? In my opinion, this beautiful film should have ended by a beautiful shot, not by some annoying sounds after those images. As a result, Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da is a must see film for the fans of the director and art house film lovers, but it could have been much better by a more powerful and longer second half.
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