Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is a slow burn police procedural that will haunt viewers with its steady pace and striking symbology.

At 150 min this is a film sure to test the endurance of some. While it is technically a cop/crime movie, those expecting a thrilling investigation and hard boiled characters will be letdown. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is more about mood and the delicate unfolding of its characters than it is about action.

Set in the Turkey outside of Istanbul, the crime aspect of the film involves the murder of a local man who is buried somewhere in the vast fields of the Anatolian countryside. The killers (Firat Tanis and Burham Yildiz) lead a convoy featuring a police chief (Yillmaz Erdogan), town doctor (Muhament Uzner) and prosecutor (Taner Birsel) to where the body is buried.

It is a long journey that reveals more about the searches than it does about the suspects. Time is wasted taking about trivial matters such as yoghurt to more serious themes of family and death, as well as the social and bureaucratic problems gripping the dwindling small towns that are scattered throughout the vast landscape this convoy of lost souls travel through in search for death, the great digital cinematography by Gokhan Tiryaki beautifully capturing the bright headlights cutting through the darkness of the Anatolian countryside.

Director/co-writer Nuri Bilge Ceylan uses symbolic gestures extremely well. A scene where these men stop at a rundown village for something to eat features a beautiful teen girl illuminated by candle light while serving them tea, and rings with feelings of startlement and melancholy at potential wasted. Ceylan also weaves in moments of well handles dark humour, especially involving police and bureaucratic blunders.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is a film that stays on the mind days after the credits role. While quiet in tone (no score is featured) it is rich in character and atmosphere, and even though its snail pace does drag on, afterwards appreciation is felt for Ceylon’s slow burn approach which seeps undetected into the mind.

Food for thought is something not a lot of films successfully achieve in giving, yet Once Upon a Time in Anatolia does just that. Give it the time and a profound experience will be had.