Yekta, 11 years old, is born and still lives in a mysterious, castle-like house, at the shore of the Bosphorus, together with her lame seagull, her spinster aunt, Nukhet Seza, and her grandfather, Sirri, paralyzed and bedridden, following the death of his son and bride. The bedroom of her mother is the place where Yekta takes shelter in, to daydream and hide her secrets. All she knows about her mother is that she had left one day in a little boat on the Bosphorus and that she would never return. One night, Yekta sees her mother go by in a little boat, through the window pane of her mother’s room. But no one believes her. Her younger aunt Neyyir, an English-language teacher living on the Burgaz Island, wants her to be registered in the boarding school on the island. She thus aims to get her away from her longing for her mother and from that weird, haunted-like house. But Yekta is unwilling to go the island… —IMDb
Born in Istanbul in 1960, Reha Erdem graduated from the Cinema Department of Paris 8 University. He obtained his M.A. in Plastic Arts at the same university. He shot his feature debut Oh Moon in 1989, as a French-Turkish co-production. He wrote and directed Run for Money in 1999, Mommy, I’m Scared in 2004, Times and Winds in 2006 (Toronto, Tribeca, Rotterdam), My Only Sunshine in 2008 (Berlinale, Toronto) and Kosmos in 2009 (Berlinale). His latest film Jin is the Opening Film of the Generation 14plus Competition at Berlinale 2013. He also has short films and directed a theater play, Maids (Les Bonnes) by Jean Genet.
Yetka has the vision to see beyond the present, the means by which she interacts with her deceased mother. While aunt Neyyir is insistent upon the physical and visual world of the now, Yetka resists! Erdem concludes in magic-realism, where Yet finds a mysterious passage to rise beyond earthly concerns. Interestingly we are never privileged to the visions given Yetka, as we have yet to earn the right to enter dreams.
The acclaimed Turkish director’s work ranges from the blackly comic to the eerily poetic.
Oh, Moon! is Reha Erdem’s first feature film, and lays out the thematic leitmotifs for his future work: Istanbul, the Bosporus, and the marginal lives of those who are linked to them umbilically… read review