Sadly Over-hyped

Great Film overall

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

This film is better than "Town", "Three Monkeys" and "Climates" but not as well as others. There is a lot of didactic dialogue in the film. As if the director imitated the dialogue of novice writers. Because the main character is a beginner writer. Even if it really is the goal, it is still bad.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is arguably the best director Turkey has ever seen and Ahlat Agaci is definitely one of the best films in recent years that has been made by Turkish directors.The plot, the acting and the cinematography is simply incredible. As a guy who lives in Turkey, it's very rare to see films with a quality. So in that way, I can easily say that Ahlat Agaci is the best movie in the past 4-5 years.What stood out for me in the film was that you basically never get bored even though the film is quite long. No unnecessary scenes, no characters that you hate everytime you see them. Definitely a thing to consider.NBC is so undervalued and underrated, at least in his homecountry. Interestingly enough, European cinema appreciates him and he almost always participates in Cannes Film Festival, but I'm %100 sure that half of Turkey doesn't even know his name. It's sad, but it also says a lot about the general look to cinema sector in Turkey.Thanks to people like NBC, though, we can watch 'real' and 'non-American made' films.Quality film by an incredible director. 10/10

The main character has a very rich and interesting personality, as well as the other characters that surround him. The cinematography is amazing as usual but some of the weird things that happen during the moving shots make them far less impressive than the glorious still shots. It's very easy to find things from your own life within the story and the dialogues that occur which makes a lot of the little-longer-than-usual scenes very engaging and that makes you wonder how the dialogue is gonna develop and conclude. I normally don't care too much about the length of movies but I'm a little bit on the negative side with this one. That's mainly because of what I told myself halfway through the movie which was; "Ohhh, we're only halfway" instead of "Yeahhh, we're only halfway". It's about a young writer who recently finished university. He must move back to his village from the city where he went to school. So his struggles start as he doesn't want to get used to the village life.

As a lover of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's (NBC) previous professional works, i found this one rather raw comparing the other films of him. First and biggest con of Ahlat Agaci is, NBC's approach to Anatolian people. He looks like he becomes more and more ignorant to Anatolians and sees less good inside them, so you can clearly feel as NBC's popularity among EU and other world climbs higher, his vision of his people got blurred and twisted by his political and ideological views.He once said while receiving greatest prize ever; "I dedicate the prize to my lonely and beautiful country." But now, without his plain and crystal clear artistry, his country is more beautiful but lonelier.As the others cons of the film, all the followers of NBC's works would agree that technical specifications and awe inspiring photography is clearly absent when you compare Ahlat Agaci to Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da or Kis Uykusu.Conclusion; not a very bad movie but, not arguably worst of his.