Suddenly

Ever since Agnès Varda's Cléo passed the agonising hours from five to seven waiting for a medical result in 1962, world cinema has often set women on an ambulatory path, either escaping from, or coming to terms with, a looming health crisis. This event is always a powerful catalyst: it forces a reconsideration of one's current, sedimented life situation, and poses diverse options for a starkly different future. Reyhan in Suddenly is a very modern heroine: she walks out on her partner and goes into hiding, spying on her family members and going so far as to take a menial job in a chintzy Istanbul hotel. Her life opens up to random, surprising encounters and unexpected friendships. All the while she is haunted by her long-lost career as a figure skater and tormented by her rapidly deteriorating sense of smell. Acclaimed photographer Melisa Önel's second fiction feature evokes – with a reverential nod to Krzysztof Kieślowski's Blue (1993) – a kaleidoscope of moods and sensations, as filtered through the sensitive, largely wordless subjectivity of Reyhan. She is like a phantom, blending in, appearing and disappearing amidst the textures and materials of urban existence. Defne Kayalar's performance captures both her solidity and ephemerality. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)