Pandora's Box

A bittersweet film about a family’s confrontation. When the aging matriarch Nusret suddenly disappears from her home in the mountains, her children must put their differences aside in an attempt to save her. They find her exhausted and lost in the forest, and take her back to Istanbul. She is diagnosed with Alzheimer, in a very advanced state. Ustaoglu paints a warm yet distressing portrait of a fragmenting family who are forced to find their way back to each other for their mother’s sake. The oldest daughter, Nesrin, desperately tries to keep her own family together, while her son Murat does what he can to get away from his mother’s controlling grip. In the end it is Murat who, somewhat reluctantly, has to take care of his increasingly demanding grandmother. The alternation between a claustrophobic Istanbul and the open hillsides give the film an added dimension, without Ustaoglu having to resort to clichés. akek