Turkish director Chan Elmark wrote and directed
Starring Gemal Hunal and Melis Berkane
The story tells the story of Alpa, who is used to being single, and meets Ada, a girl in a second-hand bookstore. After falling in love with Ada, Alpa's life has changed a lot. The film explores the complex attitudes of modern people towards loneliness and intimacy through Alpa's mental journey and performance.
When no one likes it, I actually have a good time
Alpa is the owner and chef of a restaurant in Istanbul that is well-regarded in the gastronomy world. He was born in a remote place, and came to the big city alone to work hard, and now he can be said to have a successful career. Alpa is also a literary youth, loves music, and likes to collect all kinds of rare records.
Alpa, however, lives a reclusive, single life in the city. He rarely interacts with others and has few formal social activities. Only when there are important guests in the restaurant, he cooks in person and greets the guests by the way, that's all.
Alpa has little contact with his parents, and only occasionally makes a phone call to his family, as if to complete a task. The family didn't dare to contact Alpa, for fear of disturbing him, because Alpa always said that he was busy.
Alpa also lost touch with Erd, a good friend from his school days, and their feelings for each other faded. He didn't even know that his good friend was going to get married, or it was because his friend invited his mother to be a witness, that Alpa learned this information from his mother's phone. However, he still has no plans to attend the wedding.
Alpa is not too young, but he has no idea of falling in love. After work, he went to nightclubs to find a one-night stand, or had sex with someone online. Some people may want to meet different people online, and then develop a chance to fall in love, but Alpa is not at all. His communication with his girlfriends is almost always on the physical level, and he never stays with others.
Occasionally, Appal had doubts about his life and wanted to try to develop a further relationship with his female partner, such as keeping his female partner to drink and listen to music after sex, but this made the female partner very uncomfortable, saying, I heard that right, how much I wanted to drink your glass of wine before. What's wrong with you?
This is the life of Alpa, who has almost no deep connection with people, whether it is parents, brothers, or friends, girlfriends. He is a closed person who is isolated from emotional relationships. It seemed that he lived an extraordinarily free and comfortable life, not burdened by any emotion. He likes his state.
Now, many people in our city live a similar life, maybe not as romantic as Alpa, but behind the busy work, we are atomically lonely individuals. Sometimes we enjoy this isolation, and it gives us a lot of freedom to be flexible with our time and do what we want. But it also makes everyone more isolated from others and the world: "I don't want to be in someone else's life, and I don't want someone else to be in my life."
In the end you will find that despite enjoying this freedom, there is a void in your heart. That is a void that can only be filled by a deep connection with others.
Love refreshes me, love wears me out
One day, Alpa met the beautiful Ada in a second-hand bookstore, and with an epiphany, Alpa immediately decided to pursue her. Ada is very resistant at first, but Alpa eventually wins Ada's heart with her superb cooking skills and various romantic ways. The two fall in love, and Alpa's life gradually changes.
In terms of living habits, it was the first time that Alpa shared the bed with other people for the first time. Later, he also spent the night at Ada's place - a small thing, but a real difference to Alpa. Even the communication is like this. At the beginning of the relationship, Appal didn't know what tone to use to speak to Ada, and often showed the alienation when chatting with the opposite sex before.
In his spare time, Alpa and Ada strolled the streets slowly, exploring interesting shops and tasting the food in the streets and alleys. Alpa knows all about specialty music bars and takes Ada to listen to music together. The two also shared their life experiences with each other, and their relationship became more and more intimate. In addition, Alpa has experienced a sexual experience that has never been better.
In the past, Alpa rarely mentioned his emotional experiences to those around him. Now, he takes Ada to his restaurant and introduces her to the restaurant staff, much to their amazement. Not only that, when his mother was coming to the city, he took the initiative to bring Ada to meet him, wanting them to get acquainted quickly.
Ada was a little concerned that the relationship was moving so fast. But Alpa said, you will meet sooner or later anyway.
Alpa is indeed looking forward to the long-term future of the two. He felt that after meeting Ada, everything had changed, and everything that had been familiar looked different, as joyous as a holiday morning.
But beauty is not the only feeling that intimacy brings to Alpa.
Once, when Ada was drinking too much, Alpa helped her and put her on the bed. When he looked at the drunk Ada, he suddenly felt a sense of restraint, and he felt as if he was swayed by another person. The fear of being trapped at that moment made him go out of the house to find his former girlfriend. Although Alpa finally suppressed this urge, it seems not impossible to betray someone he clearly loves.
Ada and her mother get along better and better, and Alpa feels more and more crowded in her life. After his mother lived at home, he had to listen to her nagging about all kinds of little things every day, to arrange her itinerary in the city, and to negotiate with Ada on how to allocate time. From a loner who does not have to compromise for others in everything, to a person who has to dedicate a lot of time and effort to his family and lover, Alpa feels a kind of exhaustion.
One day Alpa accompanied her mother to the wedding of an old friend, but she couldn't stand the occasion of human exchanges. He escaped from the wedding banquet, came to the quiet river alone, and began to think about his current situation.
On the one hand, he had never been so close to anyone else, and the intimacy made him feel happy, feeling that his own life and Ada's were mingling together, everything warm and fresh. But recent life has made Alpa realize that once a person has a relatively close connection with others, he will be involved in a complicated network of relationships. The time and space of his private life will be squeezed, and his own arrangements will always require changes and compromises for others. This "being with people" situation bores him.
The one who first taught us to love,
In the end we couldn't be together
Mother was going back, and before leaving, she told Alpa to cherish Ada. Ada didn't expect to see Alpa's mother so quickly and get along so well with her, which gave her more confidence in the relationship between the two.
Unexpectedly, when the two returned home from the station, Ada sat happily at the table and chatted about trivial matters, and Alpa, who was silent on the side, suddenly opened his mouth and proposed to break up. This caught Ada by surprise.
When Ada packed up and left, Alpa chased after him, trying to explain more clearly why she had broken up. He said, I seem to be a lonely person from birth, and I don't want to go into other people's lives, and I don't want to let others in.
It wasn't that Ada couldn't understand. She actually understood that Alpa would have such thoughts. She mercilessly pierced Alpa's fantasy and said: You are in your own solitude, and your heart is like being tightly wrapped by a layer of ice and snow. Although he would not feel too much pain in such a long sleep, if he continued to be numb like this, what awaited him would be the freezing and death of his mind.
After Ada left, Alpa lived a life without any restraints. He thought he could return to the "intentional" state of the past. If he wishes, he is no longer bound by anyone, and can arrange his entire life entirely by his own will. But he found that he had changed. A sense of emptiness and loneliness that he had never felt before enveloped him, so much so that his whole being sank.
One night, the director of the restaurant timidly told Alpa the good news that he had a child and was about to become a parent. Alpa congratulated him and said with a smile that he was going to be an uncle. When the supervisor opened the wine to celebrate, Alpa found that the supervisor had only opened a cheap bottle of wine and did not dare to pour too much. The director was afraid that Alpa would not be willing to spend too much on the celebration.
This supervisor came here to work when the restaurant first opened, and has helped Alpa take care of it all these years. It can be said that he is Alpa's right-hand man. As a result, such people seem to be afraid of themselves, unable to believe their sincere blessings. Alpa seems to have woken up, and he has always been too alienated and cold to the people around him. He then remembered what Ada had said when he left, and if he understood.
From then on, Alpa decided to gradually start to change himself. When the restaurant director's child was born, he did take care of the child like an uncle, and the whole person became warm and cheerful, and the atmosphere of the restaurant was no longer cold.
Once, he took his nephew to the movies and ran into Ada. A few years have passed and Ada has been married and living a stable life. During the chat, both of them were a little embarrassed. In fact, the two still have reluctance and longing for the love in the past, but the fact is that they have missed each other. After a brief hug, Alpa could only turn away and walk into the empty crowd.
Some people may think that Alpa is an emotional person, but I don't think so. It can be said that Alpa didn't know what love was at all before meeting Ada, nor did he have a full understanding of intimacy, and just lived in the single life that he was used to. Alpa's pursuit of Ada was a romantic passion, but he did not expect enough of the responsibilities and commitments contained in the relationship, so that he felt overwhelmed, unwilling, and bored in the face of it.
After falling in love with Ida, Alpa also experienced the beauty of intimacy. Because of that deep connection with Ada, his life in this world has a whole new joy. But for many people who are experiencing the experience for the first time, the problem is: they don't know how rare it is.
When we lose, we know far more than when we have it that what we need most is the one thing that has been lost. This is also the cruelty of life - we think that we will like Ta and like many people again. Only after a long time will you know that it is already the person you like the most. We always feel that the lover at this moment is the same as the life at this moment. There are many places that make us dissatisfied, but only after everything gets worse, we realize that it is the best time.
And Alpa chose to abandon Ada because he was unwilling to endure bondage, triviality, and compromise, and because he did not yet know that such enduring existed in any intimate relationship.
Worst of all, having something and then losing it doesn't feel like it's never been out of date.
The one who makes us understand love is often not the one who will always be together in the end. It's frustrating to think about. But we also can't drown in mourning this regret forever. If there's one thing we can learn from such a miss, it's to love the next person in your life. Understand that all pleasures are precious, and trivial dissatisfactions are common.
Finally, I wish the people you meet happen to have learned to cherish like you. above.
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