Distant

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 1.5

At least the title's right: two men living in an apartment - a photographer without inspiration and a blue collar worker without any work - remain as distant from the audience as they do from each other. Not much to do, really, besides watch Tarkovsky's Stalker and gawk at the symbols that appear (a tilted barge! a dying mouse!) and mope around the apartment - eventually they separate, you know, and Ceylan's nudging us in the shoulder because hey, that Means Something. Basically, they - and we, by implication - are waiting for death, locked in depression. Aren't we, as a society, growing apart instead of together? Aren't we spiritually dead? Shouldn't we get together and hug? All we need is love, love. Love is all we need.