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Directed by Tofiq Rzayev
Starring Gökberk Kozan, Erhan Sancar, İsmail Mermer, Zahit Battal Sarı
Short Film Review by Rachel Pullen
Bad things always seem to happen on dirt roads, it’s just one of those running themes throughout cinema, once you’re on a dirt track or back road bad things are awaiting. Leftovers takes place on a dirt road, up high on the winding mountains of Turkey, where two police officers are left with the task of transporting a man to identify the body of a young girl.
As the policemen travel further up the mountain their passenger becomes more and more unnerved, before he forces the driver to pull over as he becomes ill. The police do their best to comfort this man but as they travel further he becomes distant and detached, delving into his darkest thoughts and vocalising them to his guides, who desperately try to keep calm and collected on their journey.
Director Tofiq Rzayev gives the audience a very limited storyline, un-padded and bare he allows the viewer to feel the same confusion and curiosity that the officers must feel from the thoughts expressed by the grieving passenger.
The viewer is allowed to envision their own scenario, as we hear it discussed between the characters in Leftovers, but are not allowed to see it, imagination can fun free and wild. The audience is granted a front row seat to the tragic aftermath of the crime, and its effect on all in the car and this approach to the subject provides and interesting and compelling narrative.
Each character approaches the subject of the little girl in a different manner, it's almost a scale of emotions, ranging from the most extreme grief to being completely calm and indifferent.
Police officers Erhan Sancar and İsmail Mermer both portray the sense of unwilling and discomfort in having to transport Gökberk Kozan’s character to the scene of the body identification with tremendous success, there obvious desire to get the situation over with as quick as possible is apparent from the start, oozing of the screen till the point that the viewer is emerged in that sensation.
Leftovers provides and allows for so little all in one short film, this narrative piece allows you, the viewer to make up your own mind about what each character is bringing to the story line, we are given just enough to form an opinion on their roles, but those opinions are uneducated and entirely made on gut instinct, making Leftovers a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish.
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