IN THE SHADOWS: are we totally controlled?

Numan Acar in IN THE SHADOWS. Photo courtesy of Cinequest.

The gripping Turkish dystopian fable In the Shadows imagines a place where people slave in a 19th century-type industry but are monitored by 21st century surveillance equipment. An unseen power dominates and controls the workers. But does it have an Achilles heel?

In the Shadows works largely because of the powerful performance by the Turkish-born German actor Numan Acar. Acar, who played the scary Taliban villain in Homeland, has the charisma and acting chops to move a compelling story with very little dialogue.

This is the third feature for writer-director Erdem Tepegoz, and it’s impressive movie-making.

There are than a few tastes of Orwell’s 1984 in In the Shadows. If you admired the 1984 Super Bowl commercial introducing Apple’s Macintosh, you’ll like this Turkish film. It won last year’s Turkish Film Critics Association Award.

I screened In the Shadows for its North American premiere at Cinequest and it made my Best of Cinequest 2021; you can stream it during the festival for only $3.99 at Cinequest’s online Cinejoy.

Select Closed Caption to get the English subtitles in the trailer.

Cinequest: The Circle Within

Circle Within

The Circle Within (Icimdeki Cember) is a Turkish fable that turns into a psychological drama. An old peddler trudges between isolated hamlets when a younger man knocks him senseless and draws a circle in the dirt around the fallen old man.  When he awakes, the old man refuses to leave the circle, which is not a surprise to the younger man.  Why is the younger man so cruel?  How the younger man know that the peddler won’t leave the circle?  Who is really trapped?  And why?

The power of the circle stems from the Kurdish religion of yezidism, a non-Islamic minority religion related to Zoroastrianism and Sufism.

Only 72 minutes long, The Circle Within is very slow, and I had trouble staying awake. The Circle Within is not a favorite of mine, but it provides a rare glimpse into yezidism, the Kurds and the Big Sky country of eastern Turkey. The Circle Within’s North American Premiere is March 5, and it plays at Cinequest on March 6, 7, and 10.