NIETZSCHE'S UMBRELLA (FEATURE) ★★★

NIETZSCHE’S UMBRELLA (2024) is a Turkish feature film directed by HÜSEYİN SAYLAN that clocks in at 1 hour and 26 minutes. It’s a low-budget film made for a mere 50.000 USD, but with professional gear within reach for every filmmaker in the world a limited budget can take you a long way. All you need is a good story and great performers and you’re already halfway there and I’m happy to report that at least one of these goals have been achieved in this case. The cast is great, and they deliver, especially the three friends BURAK (Direnc Dedeoglu), ALTUG (Erkan Baylav) and SERKAN (Özgün Akaçça) are believable and authentic in their interactions with each other, but the story digresses into multiple storylines and it’s having a hard time getting out of in its own way.

Even though the film starts off on a philosophical note mentioning Nietzsche among others, the film quickly devolves into something entirely else following the struggles of three men who are trying to juggle ex-wives, unfulfilled dreams and the crimes they unfortunately have committed to try and obtain these dreams. Even though the director himself is calling the film an “art film” it’s not particularly artsy, which requires a more radical approach to the filmmaking itself. On the visual side the film comes off rather conventual bordering on a flat and lifeless “TV-look”, which is a shame because the substance of the film is anything but a tv-film.

Burak, the closest thing to a main character in the film, has been unable to complete his doctoral thesis on Nietzsche and his music album for years and though it at some point seems to be going his way it’s quickly derailed by their joint crimes he has long forgotten about. While everything slowly gets to a head – also introducing marital issues with several ex-wives in parallel stories underway – his voiceover throughout the film introduces the audience to a philosophical approach to life, almost like a meta layer exploring the meanings of life as they reflect the character’s actions in the film.

The title itself refers to a small fragment of text, “I have forgotten my umbrella” neatly enclosed in quotation marks in one of Nietzsche’s unpublished manuscripts. “Nietzsche’s umbrella” has been subject to many analyses since the finding of the quote. Maybe it meant nothing, or maybe it meant everything? This mystery is part of the driving force behind this film along with several other Nietzsche quotes that Burak uses through-out the film to find meaning in all the struggles he encounters along his rugged way.

As you might sense it's not easy to create a single coherent one-liner that accurately explains the storyline of the film, which is part of the problem. The film is highly ambitious, and it creates a tapestry of multiple existential issues between friends, ex-wives, fathers and uncles while also telling a crime story all wrapped in a philosophical veneer. Several times during the film it could go in any which direction, as it lacks an underlying clear vision. However, it doesn’t mean the film is a complete mess. A lot of effort has been put into the film to tie all the above together in a way that makes sense and despite all odds the director achieves to carve out a lot of substance during the film and finally tie things together in the ending. Yet, a true masterpiece requires more than substance and great performances. It requires a distinct visual identity that mergers together with a clear story. This is not quite the case here.

In my opinion the story would have been a lot stronger and cleaner without the many philosophical inputs that sidetracks the three friend’s main struggles along with the main character’s musical journey that is only vaguely explored anyway. The interesting story lies in the irreplicable consequences their crimes has caused and how it all catches up to them shattering their fragile lives and forever alters their destinies. I think the scenes with the father is kind of redundant as well, as it relates to Nietzsche’s philosophy and not to support the main story. Even some of the friend’s conversations are somehow redundant in all its intellectual and philosophical glory, which “sticks out” compared to the rather straight-forward issues at hand. Several of the conversations doesn’t serve to drive the plot(s) forward in part due to the fact that the film has a hard time deciding if it wants to be a philosophical film, a crime film, or a film about relational issues between friends, ex-vives and family members.

The story has potential and the cast delivers. Editing is good and doesn’t take anything away from the film and sound design is great on vocals making all voices appear crisp, clear and tonally rich (something that stood out technically). There is also substance to the film following the struggling friends trying to cope with their problematic lives, as they interject with each other, but I would love to see Hüseyin Saylan, who definitely shows talent as a director, create a much more clean and simple story and then build multiple layers around that.

Hüseyin Saylan on IMDb

Written by | Jesper Isaksen