Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia continues Turkish writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's streak of deliberate, thoughtful films with unexpected rewards, but this one doesn't quite match the power of his earlier, more personal work. The film opens with a slow zoom through a grimy window to three garage workers having what seems to be a friendly conversation, but, by the time the opening credits have rolled, one of them has been murdered, and the other two are in police custody, taking them on a long, bumbling overnight journey to find the corpse of the victim. Among those taking the life-changing trip are Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan), the gruff, impatient police chief; the pensive Doctor Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner), who will officiate at the autopsy; Nusret (Taner Birsel), the officious-seeming prosecutor; and Kenan (Firat Tanis), the suspect, whose deeply haunted expression is a centerpiece of the film. The men banter, and it's never quite as mundane as it seems. The milieu here is inherently masculine, so it's intriguing the way Ceylan obliquely introduces feminine power, most notably in a stunning scene in which the pretty daughter of an accommodating village leader, her face illuminated by a small lamp, serves the exhausted men tea. Here, as elsewhere, the commonplace takes on a surprising weight. Ceylan only falters in not fully trusting the viewer to pick up on all the clues he scatters.