Writing, memory and architecture flow together in this sensual nocturnal wandering through the streets of Istanbul, which becomes a vibrant archive of life lived.
Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Grant Gee (Joy Division, Meeting People is Easy, Patience (After Sebald)) takes his cue from Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk’s 2008 novel The Museum of Innocence.
In Pamuk’s vision a museum is opened in Istanbul, a museum that’s a fiction: its objects trace a tale of doomed love in the 1970s city between Kemal, heir to a wealthy fortune, and Fusun, a beautiful shop girl with whom he has a romantic affair days before his engagement to someone else. When Fusun disappears Kemal is unable to forget her and takes solace in everything she ever touched, from toothbrushes to cologne – items that go on display at The Museum of Innocence.
In another literary travelogue following Patience (After Sebald), Gee’s tour is the starting point for a trip through love stories, landscapes and the unique soul of Istanbul
British film-maker Grant Gee has got together with Turkey’s Nobel prize-winning novelist, and the result is a mesmerising, original meditation on love and the city
Andrew Pulver, Guardian
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