In general, the idea of a road trip obviously implies the existence of a goal or an experience you would like to achieve in the end. However, if we think of road novels or road movies, the definition is rather blurry since the aim is not necessarily a defining factor, making some of the entries into the genre somewhat enigmatic or ambivalent in their idea of what the meaning of the road, or rather the trip is to begin with. In his short feature “Black Sun” Turkish film producer, writer and director Arda Çiltepe uses the narrative foundation of the road trip in order to talk about a transitory period in the life of the protagonists after the experience of tragedy.
“Black Sun” is screening at Braunschweig International Film Festival
After the death of his father (?) his son (Enes Yurdaun) travels back to his home, an island in the Aegean Sea to attend to the funeral. However, he does not seem to be in a particular hurry to get there, taking stops whenever he pleases to check into a hotel, take a dive in the ocean or listen to the discussion of people he meets at rest stops or while having his lunch. Eventually, he even misses the ferry to the island, so he is forced to stay the night at another hotel and in the end cannot get to the funeral in time. When he finally arrives, he meets his sister and his mother and has dinner with them.
While in many road movies the nature of the experience or the goal one is looking for becomes clear with time, this is not the case in a feature like “Black Sun”. Interestingly, the young man's journey does not seem to be pointless either, even though his actions remain somewhat enigmatic, due to his seeming lack of emotions. Without saying much, aside from his talks with his sister on the phone and later on when he has arrived back home, he rather listens and observes the landscape and an old butcher talking to him about climate change and the changing quality of the meat he sells.
Nevertheless, allowing the trip to be essentially pointless in the general sense of the word, may lead to the core of what “Black Sun” is all about. The images, shot in a home-video-like fashion, do not tell a story about arrival, but rather one about transition, about the feeling of uncertainty and the sense of ambivalence present in the world the protagonist perceives. The radio news talking about the nearing solar eclipse, the fall of the Turkish lira as well as the butcher's erratic ramblings about signs from outer space point at something which might arrive, but whose meaning has yet to be defined, much like the young man dealing with a tragedy in his life and trying to figure out how to move on.
“Black Sun” is an enigmatic, hermetic short feature about a transition in one's life. Arda Çiltepe has managed to create an ambivalent movie who will be a riddle to its viewers, but which may ultimately prove quite rewarding to its narrative openness.
