Gary W. Tooze / DVD Beaver
Süt (aka 'Milk')

In the second installment of director Semih Kaplanoglu's award-winning trilogy, recent high school graduate Yusuf is uncertain about his future in the provincial countryside. Writing poetry is his greatest passion and some of his poems are starting to be published in obscure literary journals. But for the time being, he continues working in his single mother's village milk business. Since her husband’s death, Yusuf's widowed mother has focused all her attention to her only child. Still a young and beautiful woman, she’s is having a discreet relationship with the town stationmaster. His mother's affair, and his being named unfit for military service due to a childhood illness, make Yusuf even more anxious about making the sudden jump toward manhood.

ASut is the second film of the 'Yusuf Trilogy', which comprises, Yumurta (Egg), Sut (Milk) and Bal (Honey) as available on DVD from Olive Films. These are simple, touching humanist dramas. They focus on social and economic changes in the Anatolian provinces of Eastern Turkey dealing primarily with the dynamics of complex mother-son relationships through the protagonist

My comments for Sut will be mirrored in Bal. This is a dual-layered, anamorphic transfer that looks quite strong for the SD format. Colors are bright and detail is impressive. Contrast seems well rendered. Unfortunately, it is interlaced (see 'combing' in last capture) but is not readily noticeable even via an HD system viewing. Without abundant depth or brilliance that one could find in the newer format - this still gave me a decent presentation to appreciate the film.

Audio is clear and consistent and the burned-in subtitles seem well translated, but there are no extras at all on the region 1 NTSC disc.

I enjoyed Sut as an examination of maturity with a parallel of 'change' in the surrounding countryside. I would have liked to see the entire trilogy offered in one, more reasonably priced, box-set - but this remains a powerful piece of World Cinema.

Gary W. Tooze