The first time I saw the poster, I was stunned by its tranquility and beauty. Then the city of Istanbul has been haunting in my mind ever since.<br /><br />Not much dialogue, not much music, the whole film was shot as elaborately and aesthetically like a sculpture. It itself is a landscape.<br /><br />Actually there are a lot of things going on in the film, but the director deliberately omitted most dramatic parts and leave them to our imagination, thus creating a really flat life. **(mild spoiler)One can see Mahmut's ladylove crying in the toilet and then going out without a word but not their fight; one can see Mahmut accompanying his mother in the hospital but not her struggle from illness. The most dramatic scene in the film to me is Yusuf laughing out loud for the toy soldier he bought for his niece,** and that's when it almost broke my heart to see this boring, lonely life bursting out in such a way.<br /><br />With all the trivialities in life weeded, the story presents us with pure inner world of all the characters, their sadness, anxiety, loneliness, regrets...And as the story unfolded, I sort of finally grasped their desperate situation where their emotions were really no way out if no outer things intervened, which is exactly every loner tries to keep at all cost, especially for an irresponsible artist like Mahmut.<br /><br />I've just finished my second watching. Last night, I crouched into my quilt, had some Vodka beside my bed and went through the whole film in a trance. I felt two real lives going on, one outside the screen, one inside the screen. I felt free from all those loneliness and anxiety 'cause the people inside were experiencing it. I just had myself removed from all those things.<br /><br />We cannot deny the universal problem of communication, and loneliness even puts us far towards it, and it becomes a vicious spiral. I bet Mahmut still didn't figure out a way of living in the end. That's why he stepped out of his room to try to find the answers from the outer world, the coldness and landscape.