Semih Kaplanoglu believes in the existence of a spiritual universe, parallel to the world around us. A deeper dimension behind the everyday actions and material issues that give life structure. In his second feature, Angel’s Fall, he takes his time to give these ordinary things their full significance. Meticulously composed shots provide a beautiful and tranquil image of the various protagonists’ inner selves. The sound man Selçuk has locked himself up at home after a fatal car crash has killed his wife, Funda. He smokes, drinks glasses of water and is tormented by guilt about his brief affair with the woman next door. The chamber maid, Zeynep, works her socks off at home to avoid the blows and sexual harassment of her father. Desperately looking for a way out, she prays for help and makes sacrifices at the graves of the saints. The story takes a mystic turn when Selçuk starts hearing the sounds of ‘angels’. His cleaner advises him to give his wife’s last remaining things to someone in need. In this way, the large sky-blue suitcase from the wrecked car in which Selçuk’s wife died ends up as a gift from God for poor Zeynep. It is a magical crossing of lives in a modern, wintry, melancholy Istanbul; a big-city backdrop that evokes memories of Uzak (2002) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. (SdH)
