Farewell, Stranger

Sensitive if familiar romantic drama, from a Turkish director, set on a remote German island (Langeness), with a 40-year-old. woman forming a relationship with an exiled Turkish writer and poet in the absence of her husband and daughter. The closed community's response is deftly handled, and the couple's courting watched with tenderness. The cinematography is fine too - lovely night-time vistas against cold blue light. It's a film that stresses common humanity rather than political outrage, but it's none the less for that. Tevfik Baser relies on rather obvious symbolism (storms, floods, fires), but otherwise directs with confidence and emotional restraint.