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ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA (BIR ZAMANLAR ANADOLU'DA)Movie Reviews
Turkish language drama about a police commissioner, a prosecutor, a doctor and a murder suspect whose search for a buried body reveals secrets and hypocrisies. Cast:Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel, Ahmet Memtaz TaylanDirector:Nuri Bilge CeylanRelease Date:January 4, 2012DVD Release:June 24, 2012From:Cinema GuildLength:2 hr 30 min
JUNE 24, 2012
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da), Outstanding Reviews Key Cities
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da) played in key cities to outstanding reviews. • Ella Taylor wrote for NPR, "...ravishingly atmospheric... about the entanglement of life's big-ticket dramas with the red tape that comes with getting through the day.... it's the distractions and elisions, not the official stories, that carry the existential weight of the days of our lives." More Reviews Below...
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da) Positive Reviews (26 Reviews, reviews below)
Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com: OUTSTANDING(cg) "Nuri Bilge Ceylan, one of Turkey's best directors, has a deep understanding of human nature. He loves his characters and empathizes with them."(See all of Roger Ebert's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 696 words, 03/07/12
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NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES/CHICAGO/TORONTO (11 Reviews)
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: EXCELLENT "...a police investigation that, as miles and words mount, evolves into a plangent, visually stunning meditation on what it is to be human."(See all of Manohla Dargis's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 872 words, 01/04/12
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: GOOD (NOT GREAT)(cg) "...gorgeous to look at, intriguing to think about and, at times, hard to sit through. But that's part of its methodology. Nuri Bilge Ceylan knows exactly where to guide us..."(See all of Joe Neumaier's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 171 words, 01/06/12
V.A. Musetto, New York Post: VERY GOOD(cg) "Lots of what at first seems inconsequential is actually of great import -- but director Nuri Bilge Ceylan isn't letting on. And yes, the cinematography is impressive."(See all of V.A. Musetto's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 217 words, 01/04/12
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...seems just about perfect to me in its balance of pictorial and humanistic concerns.... It is not an easy picture. Not many masterpieces are."(See all of Michael Phillips's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 716 words, 03/09/12
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: OUTSTANDING(cg) "Nuri Bilge Ceylan, one of Turkey's best directors, has a deep understanding of human nature. He loves his characters and empathizes with them."(See all of Roger Ebert's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 696 words, 03/07/12
J. Hoberman, Village Voice: OUTSTANDING "A grand narrative yarn spun from a number of smaller ones... demonstrates the truism that the more we know, the less we understand. Or is it vice versa?"(See all of J. Hoberman's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 685 words, 01/04/12
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: OUTSTANDING(cg) "This painstaking but gorgeously realized police procedural by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the Turkish poet of the long take, nods to Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in the West.' "(See all of Peter Howell's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 729 words, 03/02/12
Liam Lacey, Toronto Globe & Mail: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...exceptional - a gorgeously shot crime story with emotionally layered characters and an indelible atmosphere of unease."(See all of Liam Lacey's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 621 words, 03/02/12
Phil Coldiron, LA Weekly: EXCELLENT "...a beeline toward justice built of curlicues and digressions into local color that eventually reveal the film to be flailing against itself with Pynchonian grace."(See all of Phil Coldiron's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 210 words, 11/03/11
Norman Wilner, Toronto Now: EXCELLENT(cg) "If you've been conditioned by years of cookie-cutter television to need a resolution in 45 minutes, it'll have you climbing the walls. But if you're open to other possibilities..."(See all of Norman Wilner's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 227 words, 03/01/12
KEY CITIES (6 Reviews)
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...austerely bewitching... explores not just matters of life and death, but also the nature of truth and lies, beauty and ugliness, guilt and innocence and good vs. evil."(See all of Michael O'Sullivan's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 515 words, 05/11/12
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star-Tribune: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...epic in its aims and achievements yet modest in its resources: some superb actors, stunning landscapes and a resonant, understated script."(See all of Colin Covert's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 269 words, 03/02/12
Stephen Whitty, New Jersey Star-Ledger: VERY GOOD(cg) "Ceylan is illuminating not just a crime here, but a culture, and that the men provide a cross-section of Turkish society only underlines its portrait of a confused nation."(See all of Stephen Whitty's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 421 words, 01/04/12
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: MODERATE(cg) "...colossally, memorably and audaciously boring, but if you stick with it - and I am not advising this - something may happen."(See all of Mick LaSalle's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 310 words, 02/10/12
Shawn Levy, Portland Oregonian: EXCELLENT(cg) "Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan ('Three Monkeys,' 'Climates') has a fine cast on hand, and he's not afraid to let uncertainty linger in the air, just as it does in the real world."(See all of Shawn Levy's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 166 words, 02/17/12
ALTERNATIVE/INDIE PRESS (7 Reviews)
J. Hoberman, Village Voice: OUTSTANDING "A grand narrative yarn spun from a number of smaller ones... demonstrates the truism that the more we know, the less we understand. Or is it vice versa?"(See all of J. Hoberman's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 685 words, 01/04/12
Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix: OUTSTANDING(cg) "...the search is internal, through the guilty, grieving memories of the investigators, ending with an excavation of a grislier kind."(See all of Peter Keough's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 157 words, 05/10/12
Phil Coldiron, LA Weekly: EXCELLENT "...a beeline toward justice built of curlicues and digressions into local color that eventually reveal the film to be flailing against itself with Pynchonian grace."(See all of Phil Coldiron's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 210 words, 11/03/11
Scott Tobias, AV Club: OUTSTANDING(cg) "Ceylan's mesmerizing existential drama takes its time establishing the players and bringing their inner lives into focus. It's cinema as autopsy."(See all of Scott Tobias's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 398 words, 01/05/12
Michelle Orange, Movieline: EXCELLENT(cg) "Tectonic pacing builds to a series of imperceptible and yet earth-moving moments.... Silence and sound are deployed as artfully as Ceylan's sweeping master shots are."(See all of Michelle Orange's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 828 words, 01/05/12
Andrew Schenker, Slant: WEAK(cg) "...plays not as a coherent vision of the absurdity of the world, nor a ground-level accumulation of pointed details, but instead a static, faux moral reckoning..."(See all of Andrew Schenker's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 525 words, 10/01/11
Norman Wilner, Toronto Now: EXCELLENT(cg) "If you've been conditioned by years of cookie-cutter television to need a resolution in 45 minutes, it'll have you climbing the walls. But if you're open to other possibilities..."(See all of Norman Wilner's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 227 words, 03/01/12
HIGHBROW PRESS (4 Reviews)
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: EXCELLENT "...a police investigation that, as miles and words mount, evolves into a plangent, visually stunning meditation on what it is to be human."(See all of Manohla Dargis's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 872 words, 01/04/12
Ella Taylor, NPR: OUTSTANDING "...ravishingly atmospheric... about the entanglement of life's big-ticket dramas with the red tape that comes with getting through the day."(See all of Ella Taylor's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 741 words, 01/04/12
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon: EXCELLENT "...subtle, gorgeous and mysterious... may be director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's masterwork to date.... like a mini-voyage into Turkey's inaccessible past..."(See all of Andrew O'Hehir's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 568 words, 01/04/12
MOVIE INDUSTRY (5 Reviews)
Justin Chang, Daily Variety: GOOD "...a meditative procedural... a slow-moving, nearly three-hour portrait of men at work, taking stock of the enormous social and moral burdens they bear."(See all of Justin Chang's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 858 words, 05/20/11
Emanuel Levy, Cinema 24/7: EXCELLENT(cg) "...requires tremendous patience and attention... a multi-layered, multi-nuanced narrative that raises some disturbing and provocative questions..."(See all of Emanuel Levy's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 615 words, 01/04/12
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: EXCELLENT "...a police investigation that, as miles and words mount, evolves into a plangent, visually stunning meditation on what it is to be human."(See all of Manohla Dargis's reviews...)(Read the full review...) 872 words, 01/04/12
17.0 Percentage Points Average Difference Between Reviews (Norm is 18.4pp; <18.4pp = More Consistent; >18.4pp = More Mixed)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da)'s reviews are separated by an average 17.0 percentage points. The norm for this measure is 18.4 percentage points. Less than 18.4 indicates more consistent reviews; greater than 18.4 indicates more mixed reviews. In the chart below, each dot represents a review, with the dots at the top more positive than the dots at the bottom. From left to right, the dots represent reviews in big, bigger and biggest publications. Roll over each dot for more detail.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da) (26 reviews) Roll over dots for each review
Coverage:Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da)'s reviews cover 27.0% of potential readers (average is 67.9%). Volume:The film's reviews total 13,486 words involume (average is 20,194 words). Length:The film's reviews average 519 words in length (the norm is 517 words).
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da) Coverage, Volume & Length (26 Reviews, reviews below)
Reviews Broke 23 Days After Release (Norm is 1.2 Release)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da)'s reviews on average broke 23 days after opening. Norm for this measure is 1.2 hours before. The chart below shows reviews on opening day and the days before and after opening; the left side is earlier and the right side is later. The red bars extending above the horizontal mid-line represent more positive reviews, and the red bars extending below represent more negative reviews. The white space/red bar in the middle is Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da)'s opening day. Click on any bar for a list of the reviews for that day.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da) (26 reviews, click on bars for reviews)
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