Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is a film of two halves, and regrettably, one half is so much richer than the other, which leaves Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest picture feeling rather unbalanced. The first half of this unusual procedural is rapturous filmmaking, as a group of police officers, a doctor and a murder suspect search for the body that is buried somewhere in the Anatolian mountains. The arduous night-time search is rendered hypnotic by Ceylan's immaculate framing and Gökhan Tiryaki's breathtaking use of light, and also by the witty, perceptive script, which is brought to life by a cluster of neatly underplayed performances. The film reaches its apotheosis in a magical sequence, in which the men are served tea by a beautiful woman who appears like an angel, but the film never really recovers from this astonishing high. As the sun rises on Ceylan's film, it seems to lose its way, and the climactic hour is a deflating slog that fails to build upon what went before. [Philip Concannon]