After the Fall

Adopting a child's viewpoint on the fallout from the anti-leftist torture and persecution campaigns following Turkey's 1980 military coup, this heartfelt, courageous, but far from strident film echoes A World Apart in its humanist emphasis. It focuses on individual lives and relationships rent and dislocated in that struggle. Tracing young Metim's journey from first discovering his mother in prison, to his grandfather's retreat to the countryside followed by flight and exile, this is relatively gentle, unhysterical drama. Physical abuse is represented by its results, emotional distress mostly implied, and there's plenty of time for excursions into country life and local politics, all of which rounds out the characters and fills in the emotional impact.