**warning contains spoilers** This film didn't make a whole lot of sense. It starts with a woman taking a long journey by bus to see a woman, a doctor. The doorman of the apartment building stops her on the way in asking her questions. She says she has an appointment. We learn that she's a fortune-teller and has come to tell Doctor Sema's fortune. She arrives at Sema's apartment and Sema shows her in. The fortune-teller makes coffee (Turkish coffee, commonly used to fortune-telling) and they sit and begin the session. Thrity minutes pass before any sort of action kicks in (the inciting action). It later transpires that the woman lost her granddaughter at Sema's hospital. It's only then, halfway though the movie that the doctor says she isn't Sema, but Sema's girlfriend Deniz. After a long standoff involving drugs and a gun, the real Sema arrives and the story is generally resolved. Probably most confusing in this film, and most unsatisfying is the end, in which we see the opening sequence again, shot for shot, but this time it's Deniz playing the role of the fortune-teller, making the long bus journey, being stopped by the doorman, and finally getting to the door, which is answered by the fortune-teller, this time in the role of Sema (really Deniz). That was a truly bizarre turn for the filmmakers to make and made an already dime-a-dozen story into something sub par. In Turkey, we've had a wave of films that are made by people who fancy themselves as theater impresarios and stage their films like bad dramas. Long scenes in one room between a few characters. But the story doesn't support their melodramatic approach. Without anything to kick off the story before the 30 minute mark, I wasn't able to anchor myself into this film and stay interested.
Review of The Pomegranate
