Aydin maintains varying degrees of distance – from his young wife and divorced sister, from the impoverished tenants in the run-down properties he inherited, and even from his own wishes. He is not a physically brutal man, but as an actor who controlled his stage-reality, he forgets that he cannot control the people in his life. With a slight nod to some characters from Chekov’s short stories, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has crafted a mesmerizing portrait of a man removed from the exciting and rewarding life he once knew in Istanbul.