Although I'd really love to do some promotion for this movie, it's a bit hard to do so. At least I can't recommend it to "normal movie viewers". This is definitively not your regular, entertaining popcorn flick that you can go and watch with your buddies on a Saturday evening before you start your tour through the bars. It's even not the right movie to drag your new girlfriend to in my opinion. There IS a chance, that she will like this kind of arty stuff, but there's a bigger chance that she won't. OK, let's unfold this a little bit. What I liked about this movie is, that it's painting quite an interesting portrait of the pristine "Karadeniz" people in (north) Turkey. But then again: This could have been done in a much more original way. The few introduced characters are too simple for my taste and they don't feel real. I'm a Turk myself and I have travelled many places in Turkey ... and for me it just doesn't add up to a realistic picture. Some of the shown landscapes and locations are really gorgeous and fantastic - that's for sure. But most of the time I couldn't shake off this feeling that I'm watching a terribly slow slideshow of somebodies last summer vacation. The story is thin and fuzzy ... I really wanted to like this film. And I also don't think that I'm an idiot who "just didn't see the point". If you have read other (positive) reviews about "Bal" before, let me tell you: Yes, it is a moving story of a child and his father. But it's also a VERY VERY slowly moving story. In fact sometimes it's hard to tell if anything on the screen is moving at all. For minutes. And minutes. That's not my understanding of entertainment or how movies should be done. This could have been a great short movie. 15 or 20 minutes. Maybe 30. Enough time to tell everything that was important in this movie in my eyes. I went to a theatre here in Germany to see "Bal" - together with my parents (my father is 73, my mother is 62 - And I'm 35). We were all more than willing to give this film a chance. My father was even a little bit angry when some woman left the movie after half an hour or so. But when the credits finally rolled in we made our jokes about how clever that woman was - leaving in time. OK, so why did I give it 5 stars? Here's my explanation: 1 Star goes for the nice locations and some of the impressive pictures. The second star would be for making a movie about a slowly vanishing lifestyle and habitat. And the last two stars are for the two tears I secretly shed during the film (one during the scene where Yusuf finally get's his award for reading and the other one when he's drinking his milk to cheer up his mother). The fifth star is there because I'm a Turk and I don't want to feel like traitor. ;-) No, honestly. Many people really seemed to enjoy and love this movie. I'm just stating that it's not quite my cup of tea. BUT... If you also tend to be bored easily, prefer entertaining movies over arty dramas and if you think that a movie is called like that because it has constant movement in it ... then this movie is probably not for you. On the other hand: It has won an important award in Germany and it's definitively something different. If you're unsure, you should wait until it's out on DVD or Bluray so you can skip the long scenes if needed.
Review of Honey
