“Erden Kiral's third film, A Season in Hakkari...is an adaptation of a Turkish novel. The script is by Onat Kutlar, one of the best writers in the Turkish cinema.... The film tells the story of a young writer who goes to a remote village in the most underdeveloped part of the country as a teacher, his struggles with natural difficulties, lack of interest of government officials, local ethics, poverty and illness during a winter season.... Kiral's second film, Bereketli Topraklar Uzerinde (On Fertile Lands) (is) one of the best films of the Turkish social-realist tradition....” Vecdi Sayar, International Film Guide 1983
A Season in Hakkari was photographed by Kenan Ormanlar, who also photographed Ali Ozgenturk's At (The Horse) (see Tuesday, January 24). German critic Peter Buchka notes, “A Season in Hakkari is impressive for its photography, above all.... one feels here in every shot the icy coldness, which not only pushes the characters together, but also makes them appear at the same time as lost points in the grandiose setting of the Anatolian mountains.... It takes patience, in order to ‘defrost' problems that are ‘frozen' into rigid (social practices), especially under the eye of the Turkish censor. Kiral and Ormanlar are able to produce the necessary warmth to loosen problems from their fossilized rigidity through the exactness of gesture and manner of behavior, which stand in a rhythmic, sympathetic balance to archaic nature....” (excerpted from Süddeutsche Zeitung, translated by Howard Feinstein, Museum of Modern Art)