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VENICE 2008 Competition

Venice’s got Milk

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Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s Milk [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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, the second part in a proposed trilogy, is the Turkish feature in competition at the Venice Film Festival this year. The co-production between Turkey, France and Germany explores the changing relationship between a mother and son who live in rural Anatolia, a region on the Aegean coast that is also undergoing changes.

Milk again centres on the sensitive Yusuf, though he is younger here than in the trilogy’s closing part Egg [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, which came out first but whose events happen later in the chronology of Yusuf’s life. (The first instalment Honey will come out last.)

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An aspiring poet, Yusuf helps out his widowed mother as a milkman and cheese seller at the market. Having recently graduated, he tries to understand how to live the life of a grown man, though the household’s milk literally and symbolically binds him to his mother. Using a large canvas and long takes, Kaplanoglu forces the viewer to tease out the hidden larger meanings behind this intimate tale of a mother and child.

Yusuf is here played by newcomer Melih Selcuk, while veteran actress Basak Köklükaya – best known in the West for her roles in Ferzan Ozpetek’s first two films – plays his mother Zehra. Köklükaya’s face, mysteriously resembling a sfumato Madonna painting from the Italian renaissance, suggests not only a particular mother, but also motherhood on a symbolical level, while the pensive gaze of the handsome Selcuk hints at his silent-waters-run-deep personality.

The film was produced by the director’s company Kaplan, with French company Arizona Films and German outfit Heimatfilm co-producing. The Match Factory handles international sales.

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