Kosmos

A man runs out of the wilderness, snowblind and terrified. A child floats in the river, face down. The thunder of artillery fire echoes from the hills. The opening of Turkish director Reha Erdem’s latest film is astonishing, unsettling and deeply strange – and ‘Kosmos’ continues in much the same vein. Where Erdem’s ‘Times and Winds’ (2006) was a lyrical but relatively straightforward rites-of-passage tale, ‘Kosmos’ is far more experimental: overlong and often perplexing, but intriguingly so. The central story thread concerns a stranger (Yermet Kesil) who may be a prophet, a psychopath or even a god. Around him are ranged a dizzying array of supporting characters and side-plots, from a crashing satellite to a brewing border war. ‘Kosmos’ is not an easy film – two hours is a long time for something this restless and unforgiving – but it is fascinating, studded with moments of exhilarating beauty and remarkable, unexpected power.