The title refers as much to the film’s main location—a tiny Turkish town comprised of no more than a few houses and a large motorway rest stop where the locals work impossibly long hours—as it does to adolescence, the way station where the child transforms into an adult. What seems at first like a piece of low-key realism comes into dramatic focus when an adolescent girl begins an obsessive sexual relationship with a middle-aged trucker, fueling the fury of the teen-aged boy who hoped to marry her. Yeşim Ustaoğlu, whose debut feature Journey to the Sun (ND/NF 2000) is one of the treasures of the New Turkish Cinema, is not only a visual poet of her country’s harshly beautiful landscapes; she also depicts with great empathy and uncompromising honesty the heart’s desires and the body’s needs.

Series: NYFF50: Main Slate

Venue: Alice Tully Hall, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center