Burning Days [Kurak Günler] **** (2022, Selahattin Pasali, Ekin Koç, Erol Babaoğlu, Erdem Şenocak, Seli̇n Yeni̇nci̇) – Classic Movie Review 12,747

The intense and stylish 2022 Turkish epic thriller film Burning Days stars Selahattin Pasali as the young new prosecutor in a Turkish small town hit by a water crisis and political scandals. He finds a friend in the local newspaper owner (Ekin Koç).

Writer-director Emin Alper’s intense, gripping and stylish 2022 Turkish epic political thriller film Burning Days [Kurak Günler] stars Selahattin Pasali as young and dedicated new prosecutor Emre, who is recently appointed to the Turkish small town of Yaniklar, hit by a water crisis and political scandals. The overuse of groundwater has led to huge sinkholes forming everywhere, there have been fake geological reports, and powerful people in town are involved in corruption.

On his arrival, Emre witnesses the brutal killing of a wild boar, dragged through the city. But he is offered tea on the street and important people from the area pay him a courtesy visit. After this apparent, if sinister initial welcome by the dodgy locals, one of whom turns out to be the Mayor’s son, Emre experiences a series of increasingly tense situations as local elections approach and he is dragged into small-town politics during his first rape investigation, finding himself as a suspect as he had been on the scene earlier.

Emre forms an uneasy, though increasingly strong bond with Murat (Ekin Koç), the owner of the local newspaper, who lives near the scene of the crime, and had apparently taken him into his home to sleep over that night, in a drugged state.

Burning Days is a tremendous, extraordinary film, with a great sense of drama, atmosphere and visual style. Emin Alper’s screenplay is superbly suspenseful and clever, stoking up the heat as the drama mounts. Selahattin Pasali and Ekin Koç give the most persuasive and involving of performances, and their heated, bromance relationship is at the centre of the movie.

It was shot in the Turkish province of Kayseri by cinematographer Christos Karamanis. Some post-production, including film editing and score, took place in Hamburg.

It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2022.

Director: Emin Alper.

Writer: Emin Alper,

Stars: Selahattin Pasali, Ekin Koç, Erol Babaoglu.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,747

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