In the Blind Spot

2023 [GERMAN]

Drama / Mystery / Thriller

3
IMDb Rating 6.6/10 10 426 426

Plot summary

A film crew from Germany, filming in a remote village in northeastern Turkey, interviews an elderly Kurdish woman. She performs an ancient ritual to keep alive the memory of the son she lost years ago. The young woman, who helps the German crew with the Kurdish translation, is also the caretaker of seven-year-old Melek. Melek's father is a member of a shadowy organization whose true purpose is unclear. The result of all these people coming together will be devastating.

Director

Top cast

Katja Bürkle as Simone
Aybi Era as Leyla
Tudan Ürper as Hatiçe
Çagla Yurga as Melek
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
1.06 GB
1280*690
German 2.0
NR
us  
24 fps
1 hr 58 min
Seeds 2
2.18 GB
1920*1036
German 5.1
NR
us  
24 fps
1 hr 58 min
Seeds 4

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by ZeddaZogenau 8 / 10

A Mystery in Kars, Turkey

It was quite a surprise that the Kurdish-German director Ayse POLAT was awarded the GERMAN FILM AWARD for best director and best screenplay in 2024. But if you have seen her film IM TOTEN WINKEL, you know that these honors are not unjustified.Everything takes place in the city of Kars in northeastern Turkey. The Turkish Nobel Prize winner for literature Orhan PAMUK has already set his novel SCHNEE there, at an altitude of 1768 meters above sea level. In Ayse POLAT's film, the somewhat naive director Simone (Katja BÜRKLE) from Germany has traveled to Kars with her cameraman Christian (Max HEMMERSDORFER) to film the old Kurdish woman Hatice (Tudan ÜRPER) during a very personal ritual. Simone is interested in imaginary monuments and recognizes this when Hatice prepares a certain soup every year in memory of her son who disappeared without a trace and distributes it to all the neighbors in her village. The young Kurdish woman Leyla (Aybi ERA) acts as a translator and also has her little English student Melek (Cagla YURGA) with her. Melek sees and feels more than the adults would give her credit for. What Simone does not suspect is that she and her small film crew are under constant observation. One evening there is a loud knock on Simone's hotel door...A very mysterious story is told here from three different perspectives. Little by little it becomes clear how everything is connected and what role Melek's Turkish father Zafer (Ahmet VARLI) plays in it. The conflicts between Turks and Kurds have by no means come to a standstill in the past quarter century; in fact, they still have an impact. All of this is told in the form of an exciting political thriller. But be careful! A genuine ghost story, in the person of little Melek, sneaks into the bitter plot quite imperceptibly. The past is never dead, it is not even past. And: the sleep of reason produces monsters.Admittedly, this is a rather complicated film, but it is very easy to understand through the chosen visual language. A bitter twist, however, is that the German woman, who is also the director, is unable to interpret the images correctly. The language spoken is German, English, Kurdish and Turkish. This film is well worth seeing, you should definitely get involved in this monstrous event!
Reviewed by elihuesi72 8 / 10

A cleverly crafted movie

To understand this movie you have to be aware of some of Turkey's policies in Kurdistan. There are still hundreds of people whose bodies have not been found, they were killed by Turkey's illegal armed groups. Yes, these people have not been found, but their ghosts still haunt this society. This was the situation Melek kept talking about and wanted to know the name of. Because these systematic massacres were never given a name. If it continues like this, it will continue to be a bleeding wound in society.

I had the chance to watch this movie at the Kurdish film festival and I think it does justice to the opening film.

Reviewed by bohdanascheinostova 6 / 10

Experimental mix of a documentary and a feature film

"In The Blind Spot" experimented with an original format of building one compact story from numerous individual plot lines with the use of documentary-like features that lend the whole picture a very realistic yet also mysterious appearance, for sometimes we can't see behind the still stationary camera for the sake of deliberately hiding some actions from viewers. What was a great move, in my opinion, was separating the story lines into chapters, although not in chronological order, as it helps the audience to keep track of all the connections that are happening on the screen. Ayse Polat, the director, cleverly ended the first chapter with a huge cliffhanger that makes the viewers wanting to know more from the story and where its going. Eventhough some questions raised in the beginning are left unanswered and the audience needs maybe a little bit more imagination and power of visualization to put the puzzle pieces together in the end, I would say it is still a film worth watching because of its extraordinary approach.

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