Turkey
Album: Islandman Feat. Okay Temiz and Muhlis Berberoğlu - Direct-to-Disc SessionsThursday, 16 March 2023
Turkish traditional music lends itself for marriages with other genres, not least rock and jazz: something about rock’s deep roots in African trance music and Turkey’s soul connection to the shamanic music of Central Asia.Although at times, the... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: AftersunTuesday, 28 February 2023
Begin describing Aftersun to someone who’s not seen it and you’ll struggle. Charlotte Wells’ debut feature looks embarrassingly slight on paper, its 93 minutes following a young girl on a Turkish package holiday in the late 1990s with her youthful... Read more... |
Aftersun review - the last good timeFriday, 18 November 2022
The New York-based Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells's feature debut Aftersun is a sublime example of how an opaque style can be wedded to an ambiguous storytelling technique without cost to psychological truth. Though the movie is... Read more... |
Tamerlano, English Touring Opera review - the darker side of HandelMonday, 31 October 2022
During the final act of Tamerlano, James Conway’s new production for English Touring Opera has the titular tyrant lead a captive king around the stage on a chain. Given the oppressive, deadlocked mood of Handel’s opera and this interpretation, you... Read more... |
Three Thousand Years of Longing review - be careful what you wish forSaturday, 03 September 2022
Before there was cinema, there was story-telling around the fire with those who could spin the best yarns, conjure the most vivid visions, winning the love of their audience. George Miller has been bringing innovative and entrancing stories to the... Read more... |
Stray review - a delightful portrait of a dog named ZeytinSaturday, 27 March 2021
It’s a dog’s life, this lockdown; if only I could meet my friends whenever I want to and roam around freely without obeying these annoying restrictions! Stray is a documentary about the street dogs of Turkey in which film-maker Elizabeth Lo... Read more... |
Istanbul International Music Festival online review – East-West flair and finesseSaturday, 03 October 2020
Salzburg, Verbier and other high-end festivals have scraped together reduced, still impressive programmes over the summer for consumption online. Not so starrily cast but hardly less engaging in situ is the adapted offering from Istanbul, mixing... Read more... |
Album: BaBa ZuLa - Hayvan GibiFriday, 02 October 2020
The Turkish psych folk band Baba Zula are at their very best live: the essence of their appeal depends on slow-burning climbs towards an ever-elusive climax, perfectly honed for a crowd that wishes to dance their minds away. Their latest release is... Read more... |
Sema Kaygusuz: Every Fire You Tend review – an education in griefSunday, 15 December 2019
In March 1937, the government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk instigated what it called a “disciplinary campaign” against the Zaza-speaking Alevi Kurds in the Dersim region of eastern Turkey. What followed was a bloody, coordinated assault that resulted in... Read more... |
Holiday review - harrowing Danish drama about misogynySaturday, 03 August 2019
The English-language drama Holiday, Danish filmmaker Isabella Eklöf’s feature debut, is an anthropological study of the corrosive effects of absolute male power and calcified misogyny. Inspired by a book written by Eklöf’s co-writer Johanne Algren... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Wild Pear TreeFriday, 29 March 2019
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has been a Cannes regular for almost two decades now, and one of the festival’s more frequent prize-winners: over his career he has come away with two Grand Prix (for 2003’s Distant and 2011’s Once Upon a Time in... Read more... |
CD: Gaye Su Aykol - Istiklarli Hayal HakikattirSunday, 21 October 2018
When, as an artist, you live under the power of a quasi-dictatorship, you choose to stay rather than go into exile, and you want to avoid being thrown into prison, one of the best strategies for opposition is poetry. Turkish rock diva Gaye Su Akyol... Read more... |
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