Director: Metecan Duren
Writer: Metecan Duren
Stars: Melisa Kihtir, Saran Duren, Omer Gursoy
Synopsis: After contact with the ghost of a murdered young girl, Pretty becomes obsessed with uncovering what happened. But as strange occurences plague her home, she finds herself in a twisted game of love, murder, and jealousy.
Directed, written, editing, and cinematography by Metecan Duren. This was the first sentence that I found while preparing to watch Pretty, a feature debut from Duren, who is a medical student and yet -like many of his generation- found his true passion in the art of filmmaking. It brings to mind another revolutionary who started ambitiously really young, Xavier Dolan, but while he was the only one standing in the millennial generation -who waited until they learned better and perfected the craft- this younger generation of filmmakers seems nonchalant and careless about having multiple trials and errors.
It’s both a blessing and a curse. This is a generation that knows its time is limited on the planet, that is not easily fooled or sold impossible lies by the media, so they grab at it while they can. Putting those facts into perspective makes it much easier to read their art and analyze it without harshly slamming it. So what makes Duren’s film stand out?
Pretty is well, a pretty, doe-eyed young woman, who in the middle of her loneliness and withdrawal from society, communicates with the ghost of a murdered young girl. The communication is two-way, and it seeps into other aspects of Pretty’s life, parts where she definitely doesn’t want to be haunted by the ghost of a girl whose life ended brutally. It’s a bit of a be-careful-what-you-wish-for-tale, but it’s also an empowering way for Pretty to let go of her subservient existence to all those around her, including her awful dismissive sister. There’s also a creepy bunny character and a bunch of useless hot friends. It’s a lot to take in, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have a lot to tell.
A very interesting observation about this film which I wish had taken another feature to focus on, is the tendency of this generation -and maybe the one preceding it- to chat with complete strangers online, when now, even random street sellers and old grandpas have online presences. It’s even worse when one thinks about the diabolical appeal of anonymous chatting on familiar apps. Isn’t that the actual haunting? Technology usurping its alleged purpose of connecting distant friends and family, as well as helping those seeking romantic communication in a disconnected world when anonymous texters could be a familiar face wearing a cloak of invisibility for underlying purposes.
Kudos to Duren for picking actress Melisa Kihtir to play Pretty, for she is truly one stunning woman. She is a brunette version of Sabrina Carpenter and it’s easy to see how she can have a brilliant career as an actress, not only for her performance (which so far looks promising) but more prominently her photogenic features and her rizz beyond the modest indie camerawork. The director’s camera tracks her, in love with her expressive face, her bold eyebrows, and despite the shadow-heavy lighting -too much shadow for my liking- it somehow works.
One of the main problems (but also a refreshing aspect) of Pretty is the length. Those young directors seem to fall in love with every minute filmed, every second of passage of time. Sometimes it works -well if the filmmaker is Tarkovsky- but mostly it drags the film on and on in an endless loop of a pitch dark nightmare. It’s not so bad considering these films are fresh and simply executed, without the hassle of wanting to say something with the image alone, separate from the narrative. But it still calls for attention, especially since this is the ambitious debut feature film from Duren.
Another problem is that while Pretty is the main attraction, whose arc is the only one that matters, other characters simply dissolve in the background, making the entire movie a one-woman show. That is great but the 123 minutes are too much for this simple story of a girl haunted by her aloneness and her seeking of the alone. There also seems to be a school of filmmaking under Curry Barker’s name, where a lot of young artists are following in his footsteps. Duren uses pockets of shadows, and opts for unlit realism to unsettle audiences with the lack of any form of light, where anything could happen in the dark empty spaces and corridors, scanning the darkness for any form of movement, even if it’s a phantom presence. But when overused, it backfires. Unfortunately, in Duren’s film, the prolonged, oppressive darkness loses its visual impact and contributes little to the narrative, becoming an inescapable blackness that lingers for minutes on end.
Safe to say Pretty is a film for those who have a lot of time on their hands. It’s scary, though, with the excellent performance from the lead actress and the harsh underlighting of the scenes making for some decent jump scares. But as promising as that project may look, one actively awaits more from the filmmaker, hopefully avoiding all the pitfalls of this one in his upcoming projects.
