after watching hundreds of grate classic Hollywood films, Italian and French unforgettable masterpieces , it's amazing that this specific Turkish movie made it to the top of my list. It is made accurately and neatly , you can see how specific was the directors planning. The story touches the viewer using less words and a more gestures.the connection to nature is very beautiful. the opportunity to get inside a Childs world is as always magical. actors don't even feel as actors , so that is also well done. I never heard of this director before , hope to see some more of his work in the future. I think this movie is intended for film lovers who watched European films before and are use to the slow timing and long cuts , for those who have not watched these before i recommend watching this one if you are trying to get started. waiting for more!

The very intelligent director lets the story tell the story itself with much sophistication! The story is so profoundly blended into and diffused through actors in a highly natural way & path that are so close to the real life! With only few lines as most mountain farmers do not speak much, the facial expressions, postures, reactions to each other, body languages of actors tell the story and even animals help reinforce the story. I watched it twice and felt the power of the story even much stronger, a great silent power of the story that is told in a nearly silent way. While watching it, my physical & spiritual senses were all open to receive the story. it is composed through eyes, ears, nose, tongue, throat of the director's, and then conceived by the same senses, plus mind & heart of the audience's. The film has the best ending I have ever seen! Yusuf doesn't know how to react to the tragedy and he & the story exactly show that way, again in a highly natural way & path to present it! It is definitely one of the best films ever made in the world! ^0^

It is noble of the director filming his story and finding peace within himself by telling his story. Unfortunately I can't say the same about my viewing experience. I know the movie has made many fans (it even won a Golden Bear in Berlin in 2010), but even when I got on with the repetitiveness of some of the themes, I couldn't really take it as seriously as it was meant.It never felt lyrical either (it's shot too down to earth for that), it never really gets fantastical either. It tells its story as cold as winter time can be. Which is strange considering there is a boy in the main role and you should feel for him. The fact, the boy does not really act did not help either.But than again that's me talking. Read another review and you will read the complete opposite. I like slow moving movies too, but they should at least have some substance to them. Loss of innocence in your youth has been filmed in way better style, so that is almost feels like loss of my time ...

This movie is about the daily routine of a simple, rural Turkish family; a father (who collects honey for a living), a mother (who works around the home), and a child (who goes to school). The story is told from the perspective of the child, a young boy. "Daily routine" is the key phrase here, because this is exactly what you see. Nothing particularly eventful happens until towards the end of the movie. So basically you watch the kid going to school, and at school; the father going to work, and at work; the mother working around the home, harvesting or cooking. Interspersed among this is the occasional meal at table with modest conversation and interaction, and some brief father and son time around the home. That's it.The only drama or suspense for most of the movie concerns the difficulty the boy is having learning to read which threads throughout the film to the very end. What I've described would be completely uninteresting told from an adult perspective. So it's the boy who is carrying this movie (cute kid). It's his perspective --which is very serious and thoughtful-- that holds your attention any length of time. But we are, to be honest, not only interested in the boy's character in the film, but also the boy playing the character himself. He is impressively disciplined for someone that young. But even the greatest actor needs something to work with besides daily routine which I can see anytime I want to by looking out my window. So I did zone out after awhile (No, I don't do drugs!) near the middle of the film somewhere.One of the noteworthy and curious things about the movie is how subdued this family is; disciplined even. There are no great expressions of happiness or sadness for most of the film. There was the brief smile once in awhile, but that's as far as it went; a serious expression on all faces dominated throughout. So I didn't get the impression that this was a particularly happy family. But at the same time, I didn't feel that it was out of the norm either. So maybe they were happy --or at least content "in their own way". Finally, I did not like the way the movie ended for principally 2 reasons: (1) This is a simple, hard-working family that did not have that much and did not "seem" all that happy to begin with. (2) The movie again, was pretty uneventful, as described, and so the only way it could possibly sustain your interest from beginning to end is if you like this family. I did. And so for these 2 reasons Boloxxxi felt like he was kicked in the nuts by the writer. A plague on the bastard! Love (Ironic, aren't I?), Boloxxxi.