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Istanbul Tales

Fractured fairy-tale skirts heavy-handedness

By PETER KEOUGH | March 22, 2006

3.0 Stars

A bursting portmanteau of storytelling, character, and atmosphere, Istanbul Tales makes for an exhilarating opening night for the MFA’s Turkish Film Festival. Five directors, headed by screenwriter Umit Unal, spin five interwoven different stories set in contemporary Istanbul. An elderly musician with a bewitching clarinet has love problems with his much younger wife, a woman flees a hitman sent by her stepmother, a transsexual prostitute falls in love with a prince charming, a dirt-poor peasant finds himself in the palace of a sleeping beauty, and a woman and her daughter get out of prison. Toss in a helpful dwarf whose siblings are named Sleepy and Doc and the kitschy fairy-tale motif gets a little heavy-handed. Yet Unal, whose previous film, 9, confronted the city’s underbelly with much less whimsy, keeps the magic rooted in reality. The narratives don’t quite mesh, but the concluding image touches on the visionary.

Topics: Reviews , Umit Unal

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