Innocence of Memories, 2015.
Directed by Grant Gee.
Starring Pandora Colin and Mehmet Ergen.
SYNOPSIS:
Ayla narrators the story of Pamuk’s novel The Museum of Innocence in fresh vivid detail, bringing the landscape of Istanbul during the 70’s to life.
Based on the museum and novel that won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006, Grant Gee implants Orham Pamuk’s fictitious masterpiece further into our reality, viewing Kemal’s love story through the eyes of another character that perceives Kemal’s desire for Fusan through less innocent eyes. British based documentary veteran Grant Gee unsurprisingly takes on the difficult task of adapting Orham Pamuk’s novel into a cinematic essay after directing his last documentary, Patience (After Sebald.) In the same way Patience (After Sebald) looks at Sebald’s book The Rings of Saturn as a discursive text seeks to reform the conception of memory as territory that exists on the same level as time present, Gee explores a familiar territory of memory through viewing the landscape of Istanbul authentically and in great detail. In the same vein as documentary maker Patrick Keiller, who explores movement and place in an effort to map out the 21st century landscape, Gee through his film The Innocence of Memories forms his own interpretation of place and landscape in a more physical and interactive way that is as exciting as it is interesting.
Grant Gee frames Pamuk’s narrative perfectly, while also offering a new insight into the characters we’ve either read about or seen in his museum. He captures the essence of Pamuk’s novel by selecting from its source artefacts that are imperative to analysing the love between Kemal and Fusan; in the same way that Kemal meticulously selects her objects to relive his time with her ritualistically, Gee strategically selects quotations and sequences to animate their story further, allowing his audience another chance to enter into their lives. Much like the way The Museum of Innocence uses only artificial light to make its visitors forget about the concept of time, so as to create the feeling of entering into a time capsule of Turkey in the 70’s, Gee recreates a vivid, expansive, all-encompassing feeling of the cities melancholy that reflects that of Kemal’s through the cinematography and narrative.
Previously credited as a cinematographer, it isn’t unsurprising that Gee focuses on the aesthetic of how his film is viewed. The way in which Gee utilises the camera, panning across the streets and landscape of Istanbul, illuminates the narrative of the film by connecting us with the same place and settings that its characters find so familiar. His technique allows us to enter into the same fictitious world that we find inhabited by Fusan and Kemal. As the camera hovers in “unusual orbits”, floating in and out of the dark streets solely inhabited by dogs and taxis in the twilight of night, we gain a feeling for what Pamuk so vividly describes in his novel. Gee’s film makes no effort to re-enact Fusan and Kemal’s love story, but instead chooses to implant their fabricated lives in the same way Pamuk’s museum intends to do, merging their story with our reality, re-creating a feeling of what Istanbul was like in 70’s in its transitional phase into modernity and the westernisation it went through. In adapting Pamuk’s story in this way, Grant Gee makes their fiction more tangible and real than any dramatic adaption might have done.
The narration of Innocence of Memories was written by Orham Pamuk and remains as powerful as his literature has been recognised for. Framed through the narrative lens of Fusan’s friend Ayla, who also lived in the same building as Fusan, we witness Pamuk’s same story through a secondary lens that analyses more than it retells. Beautifully written in tremendous detail, Ayla’s narration is spellbinding and compelling, breathing a new life into Fusan and Kemal’s story through juxtaposing what life was like during 1970 with how it is now. It borrows in equal parts from history and from Pamuk’s novel, offering a refreshing way to once more view Pamuk’s tale. Much like Joyce’s Ulysess, both Pamuk’s novel and Gee’s cinematic reflection imprison what it was like to exist in the fabric of Istanbul during the 70’s. The descriptions of the landscape in the novel are translated beautifully in Gee’s film, as we are forced to walk the same streets Kemal does. The film’s narrative transgresses boundaries of time by constraining its narrative to movement and the memories that are evoked by passing buildings and objects that are tied to Kemal’s obsession.
Whether you’re interested in Pamuk’s novel, his museum, the history of Istanbul and Turkey or documentary film in general, you will not be disappointed in viewing Gee’s unique dissection of Pamuk’s story. Innocence of Memories, although not for everyone, is a wonderful introspective insight into the landscape of Turkey and the idea of love and possession. Understandably difficult to translate to film, Gee’s Innocence of Memories could not have been delivered better by any other filmmaker.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Joshua Gill
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Originally published April 4, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
