Through a Glass Darkly: Keltek Finds Divinity Through Insanity
Sanism might be the term best used to define the trials and travails faced by the protagonist of Turkish director Gürcan Keltek‘s sophomore film New Dawn Fades (Yeni șafak solarken). Like the Joy Division song it shares a title with, a mentally unstable young man drifts in and out of hallucination in a film which also feels “Directionless, so plain to see.” Since the narrative is from the perspective of its spiraling principal, it takes a while to mull over Keltek’s languorous pacing to decipher if it’s merely an affliction or if something more sinister and supernatural is indeed afoot. Much like Keltek’s 2017 feature Meteors, abstract genre elements distract and ultimately gaslight the audience in a muddled take on psychosis, which is initially interesting but eventually feels repetitive and laborious.
Akin (Cem Yigit Uzümoglu) seems to be a troubled young man for reasons which aren’t entirely clear. His mother is endlessly worried about him, specifically concerned about his interests with getting to know his father, who resides in Serbia. Spending his free time drifting around various religious monuments in Istanbul, it seems Akin suffers from various hallucinations which she classifies as Satanic. Eventually, we learn he was released from the hospital some time ago, and his physician recommends more sessions and a higher dose of Lithium to curb Akin’s symptoms.
What’s quite exceptional about New Dawn Fades is the score composed by musical artist Son of Philip, which on its own is effectively eerie, to a degree where it could be transposed upon “The Great British Baking Show” and stranglehold the pleasantry enough to provide significant cognitive dissonance. Along with DP Peter Zeitlinger (responsible for several late period Werner Herzog films), who drifts over bright lit cathedrals and daytime graveyards with such gradual elation we’re left eternally waiting for something nasty to pop up, the ambience instilled in the production of the film is quite superb. As Akin, Cem Yigit Uzümoglu appears all grown up for captivating leading man material, and his eternally brooding glare suggests he’d make a great Hamlet. However, the film’s pacing quickly stagnates as we bump into a handful of characters who hold significant meaning for Akin but with very little backstory. An old friend from a past hospital stay shows up in the middle of the night suggesting they had a ‘love that dare not speak its name’ dalliance, but we learn Akin is now sober, though sees nothing wrong with the man smoking illicit drugs while sitting at his mother’s dinner table. Another woman pops up as a helpmate who assists him with regulating his breathing, but we get even less information about her.
Significant family trauma could presumably be the root cause of his instability, seeing as there’s a strange fascination with an estranged father known as ‘The Butcher of Belgrade,’ whom his mother is adamant he does not meet. A pseudo-exorcism with the use of cupping and leeches seems to escalate the tension. His mother, who is painted as borderline hysterical herself, moans to a friend over the phone about how no one visits for coffee anymore because they’re wary of Akin. However, a majority of the film finds Akin actively avoiding home as he drifts aimlessly and endlessly through the city. It seems she has plenty of time for coffee klatches.
Slowly (very slowly), we’re able to piece together Akin’s religious fixations. He overhears a tour guide explaining an ancient cult religion whose temples were underground. The aural and visual hallucinations are supposedly devils or demons, and it seems a boundary crossing doctor (“Of all my patients, I spend most time with you”) pops up in these visions, alongside a young girl Akin has seen on ‘Missing’ posters plastered all over the city. The lore of his fanaticism expands exponentially in the effects-light finale, where the ragtag specters announce they’re known as Chalcedon (an ancient maritime town near Byzantium, also an ecumenical council of the Christian Church which made a lot of people angry due to their championing the two natures of Christ, divine/human, etc.) as they slowly perambulate toward a tangerine dawn. Despite its visual prowess, New Dawn Fades can’t quite establish any emotional connectivity to its subject, thus robbing it of any tension, terror, or even dread. Akin is a young man hopelessly adrift in a system unable to assist him, and so he drifts into his own comfortable death dream, a slow-burn psychotic break that sounds more interesting to describe than it is to behold. What a pity we could not be pricked with the despair he’s experiencing.
Reviewed on August 15th at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival (77th edition) — Concorso Internazionale section. 130 Mins.
★★/☆☆☆☆☆
