Synopsis
Lost all their relatives, a retired man who lives alone in the Hereafter, his preparations for the journey, and Gönül's nephew, a tragicomic story about the involvement of these preparations recklessly.
Director's short bio
Born in Ankara in 1984. In 2008, Gazi University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Radio, Television and Cinema began studying. In this process, several short films, promotional films, video clips, and carried out projects. National short film projects to be carried out and the awards were screened in festivals and competitions. At the same university in 2013, Radio, Television and Cinema starting graduate school in the field of photography and cinema director, as a professional involved with...
Film Participations Awards
2015 – 6 Lions International Short Film Festival, Best Short Film, Third Best, Istanbul-Turkey
2014 – 26th International Short Film Festival, Fiction, the finalists and Views Selection, Istanbul-Turkey
2014 – 14 Short-ca International Student Film Festival, Fiction Department, the finalists, the Konya-Turkey
2015 – 1st National Silhouette Film Festival, Fiction Category, Finalist, Istanbul, Turkey
2014 – 1 Sivas Short Film Festival, Films Competition, Finalist, Sivas Turkey
2015 – 5 Yılmaz Güney Kurdish Film Festival, Films Competition, Finalist, Batman-Turkey
2014 – Balkan Film & Food Festival, Cinema Lasgush Poradec Section, Selection Screenings, Tirana-Albania
2014 – 7 Inonu University International Short Film Festival Selection Competition Screenings, Istanbul-Turkey
2014 – 3 gold teeth Film Festival, Fiction-6 section, showing Selection, Istanbul-Turkey
2014 – 8 ANKAmall 2nd Hand Film Festival, who rotation-VII Part, views, Ankara-Turkey
2014 – 1. Marmaris International Short Film Festival, Screening Selection, Istanbul-Turkey
2014 – The 12th International Environmental Film Festival, the National Environmental Short Film Competition, Film Competition, Istanbul, Turkey
2014 – Monet Film Named Sharing Site Short Film, Short Film of the Day, November 28,
2013 – Line TV “short break” Program Section 39, Representation, Publication date 12 December
2014 – BAK 2 SETEM Academy Awards, Special Jury Fiction Finalist, Istanbul-Turkey
2014 – BAK 2 SETEM Academy Awards, Fiction Category, Best Actress Nominee (Selma Bayraktargil), Istanbul, Turkey
Cast & Team
Director: Mehmet Yamak
Director: Muhammet Ateş
Scriptwriter: Yılmaz Yücel
Producer: Emirhan Bal
Cinematographer: Mehmet Yamak
Sound: Can Kabadayioğlu
Music: Ezginin Günlüğü
Cast: Sahir Tamer
Cast: Selma Bayraktargil
Cast: Talha Can
Technical Specs
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Sound Format: Stereo
Andrei Sendrea
Hilarious and well acted throughout – even the boy who doesn't say much – Uncle is a satiric reflection on our dealings with death and how spirituality and ritual is in the end transformed into empty gestures and objects. The legend of the torn shroud, the sellers cynical response (“tell your niece to come exchange the shroud when you die”), the niece's mercantile view over the act of mourning (not a heartfelt flow of emotions, but the necessity of scoring points with God “maybe the wrong dead person will benefit from the prayers”), all these cancel any pretense of spirituality. On the other side, if we are willing to see these people not as caricatures but as human, we find that ultimately it is the fear of death (common to all) that drives most people into denial, into rationalization as a part of not facing the facts and escaping the thoughts.
I was quite thrilled with the idea of using the animal documentary playing on the TV to counterbalance the high pitch, ridiculous dialogue between the niece and the uncle, arguing which is the better course of action to take once you're dead.
Olivia Harsan
Mehmet Yamak’s The Uncle is an absurdist portrait of rituals associated with death. It begins with the protagonist, an elderly man simply referred to as ‘Uncle’, folding up a white shroud and placing it neatly in a drawer. Later, he sits in his living room counting grains of rice while watching a documentary about the evolution of giraffes – the image of life becoming juxtaposed with the Uncle’s preparations for death. Subsequently, a younger woman with a little boy, suggestively his daughter and grandson, enter his apartment. She begins to houseclean and stumbles across the shroud. Funnily enough, her outrage in finding the shroud relates to the quality of the material rather than the fact that Uncle has purchased the item prematurely. When she further nags him on the topic of his grave lot, Uncle decides to sell the spot. In the end, Uncle ironically suffers a heart attack as a result of the stress he has endured during his interactions with the woman. But where will he be buried if he has sold his grave?
Aysha Panter
Dayı or The Uncle (2013) revolves around three distinctly portrayed characters; an ageing uncle, a caring but overbearing niece, and her young son. The uncle, a lonely figure facing his imminent death, is forced to make funeral preparations. Unfortunately for the uncle, every decision that he makes is scrutinized by his niece.
Focused on the practicalities of life, the niece faults his shroud, urging him to buy reliable material from an honest shopkeeper. She reminds him to give her a key to his house. She then questions the plot of land he chooses for his grave, fearing a landslide. Although her concerns are sensible and practical, her tone is nagging and without compassion. Rather than aiding his preparations, the niece fills her uncle with bitterness and distress. Filled with doubt, the uncle attempts to rectify his errors.
In a final dramatic scene, the uncle lays dying on the floor, his niece patiently waiting for him to open the door. The only error the uncle fails to rectify literally holds the key to his life.
Although the film bears valid points, the subject is rather dour. Nevertheless, the exceptional acting makes it enjoyable to watch. The film certainly captures the practicalities involved in facing an impending death.
Tess Noonan
Dayi the Uncle offers a vibrant experience for a film dealing with death. It does so by dealing with its logistics thus demystifying death and the afterlife. The films conveys an uncanny tone, of dark and satiric humour, through a, amusing and touching character, a good timing and pace and very good directing.
Maša Seničić
This film is a tragicomic review on the ritual-like preparation for the inevitable, as well as a farewell to a world which has long ceased to be an enjoyable home for the main character. While the TV series echoes through this old man's apartment, they remind us about the laws of nature in the deep wild, the ones which are the complete opposite of imposed rules and irrational fears of the mankind. Death, this mystetrious and sacred void, in end the comes down to a shroud and a grave, a tiny list of material things. The author understands the importance of space in the story and takes advantage of it, making the interior compassionate towards its tired resident, while the exterior seems complicated and unfriendly. Death is a lonely quest, and here it is humourously presented as a short, but perplexed consumerist journey. Talking in terms of the film's rhythm, it regrettably hasn't succeeded in using its full comic potential.
Ozge Ozduzen
Dayı places an old man’s dying process in its centre and his relationship with his family members, especially with his niece. For instance, the Dayı buys shroud for himself, which signifies a person’s loneliness and helplessness in the face of isolation and death. We observe him in his daily routines of waking up and other activities like watching animal documentaries on television. His habit of watching documentaries on animals and wildlife becomes a recurring theme, which might denote that he relates the information conveyed from the representations of animals to his own understanding of life and death.
The film also reflects the Islamic view of death and afterworld as the Muslims use burial shrouds to bury their dead. Furthermore, Dayı’s taking all advice from his niece shows the impact of the family and kinship in the organization of Turkish society (hence the name of the film). The niece’s negativity throughout the film guides Dayı’s activities and his change of decisions. Centering around the ‘economic’ preparation of an ordinary ‘uncle/dayı’ for death, Dayı underlines that even dying has to be economized, although it implies spirituality for the majority of people on earth.
Viorella Manolache
The film reconsiders the essential subject of the “final journey”, focusing on the interior frames (as a waiting space) and on the short and unpleasant interactions with the exterior.
The ramifications of a dawn age can be found in utility and in-utility, in isolation and in the present of the turned on TV (symbol of the closed image left on the channels regarding the animal - material world) which fills in a disturbed by the Beethovenian ringing bell and by a without signal mobile phone minor universe.
The uncle becomes a generic category, and the nephew the symbol of the perpetuated generation.
The end is announced by the dialogue, by the position in the bed, by the impulse of postponing the final moment – selling the grave – and by the last words encrypted on the funerary stone.