Winter Sleep

Winter Sleep (2014) by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon A Time in Antolia) has created a novelistic study of a delusional landowner in a rural village in Cappadocia. He is delusional because he believes tha the acting as a kind of benevolent wealthy landowner and village elder, Adyin (Haluk Bilinger), but in reality no one really likes him or respects his petty little column that he uses to criticize the people around him. There is an incident involving the young son of a  tenant with a Muslim Imam in the household that proves to be the catalyst for Adyin's reckoning. he demands satisfaction from the family when the boy is caught throwing a stone at Adyin's car-breaking a window. An apology isn't enough and the family haunts Adyin by begging his forgiveness and trying to show respect and deference to their landlord. His sister, Necla, who is seeking refuge from a divorce questions whether or not she should return to her ex-husband and leave her brother. His much younger wife, Nihal (Melisa Sozen), is driven to exasperation by his belittling of her fund-raising projects. However, his skepticism and cynicism turn out to be accurate when his wife tries to give his anonymous donation to the family that has a sick boy and unable to pay their rent on time. This unfolds slowly over three hours but punctuated with stunning cinematography by Gökhan Tiryaki. The film has garnered almost universal praise including winning the Palme D'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.