An elderly man's obsession with the past is shared by a new and younger friend in this offbeat drama from Turkey. Mithat (Mithat Esmer) is a man in his early eighties who believes they just don't make things they way they used to. Mithat is able to readily make the comparison, as his apartment is crammed to the rafters with the many things Mithat collects -- books, old newspapers, audio tapes and a remarkable assortment of bric-a-brac. Mithat's "collection" eventually drove away his wife, and his neighbors in the run down apartment block he calls home are none to happy about it, believing the weight is making the building unstable. Meanwhile, Mithat's building has a new manager, Ali (Nejat Isler), a man in his mid-thirties who has been struggling unsuccessfully to find better paying work. Ali is fascinated by Mithat's collection, imagining some of it must be worth money, but as the two men get to know one another, Ali begins to see what Mithat sees in his piles of cast offs -- artifacts of the city of Istanbul that has become all but unrecognizable from the town he knew as a young man. As Ali is drawn into Mithat's world, he begins to take part in Mithat's last great project -- a map of Istanbul that will document the city as it was in the past. 11'E 10 Kala (aka 10 to 11) was the first dramatic feature from writer and director Pelin Esmer, whose previous work had been in documentaries.
by Mark Deming
synopsis
