“If this film proves anything it is that Pelin Esmer is a gifted storyteller, capable of weaving together lives that you imagine would never have crossed paths if it weren’t for her story.”
What are we, but our life story? Yet Aliye (Merve Asya Özgür), a housekeeper at an old hotel in a small town, prefers to replace her own story, in which she is a struggling woman who has to carry the name of her father’s former lover, with far more interesting ones, such as those of the guests in her hotel. She is a fan of a famous director, Levent (Timuçin Esen), who she admires from afar during a Q&A after a screening at a local festival. While working in the kitchen behind the bar, she overhears the local patrons tell Levent their stories, in hope of becoming the center of one of his films. All Levent sees is the arm through the small window between bar and kitchen. When Aliye decides to tell him her life story by sending him voice messages, Levent becomes intrigued by this mysterious woman and starts to form a story of his own to forget about the drama he just ended, that of his marriage. As they draw closer together, if not physically then at least in their stories, tales real and imagined start to blend.
In And the Rest Will Follow, Turkish director Pelin Esmer’s seventh film, the stories we tell each other are central, so it should be no surprise that narrative and story structure are the main selling points. What started with Esmer seeing a woman’s arm through a service window (much like one of her protagonists sees the other in her film) becomes an intricate tale of two people distant from each other in class, age, and also a geographical sense. And the Rest Will Follow is a film that requires full attention to keep track of the stories the two central characters tell each other and themselves, and in all honesty some of the plot strands that evolve from this do not fully land. A plotline of Levent shooting a short film that will bring him back to the small town of Söke, employing elements of Aliye and Levent’s own stories, doesn’t fit well into the narrative framework of the film, however amusing we find the young boy at the heart of that short (played by a cheeky Oğuz Kara).
With such focus on story and structure, almost inevitably the other aspects of the film play second fiddle when it comes to drawing attention. Esmer’s direction is assured but sober, with little flight of fancy. The performances of the cast are solid, with Esen a particular standout, but won’t linger for too long. Barbu Bălășoiu’s lush cinematography is particularly noteworthy, with its saturated colors warming up the interiors of the hotel that is central to the film and the two protagonists. But everything circles back to, and is in service of, the storytelling of And the Rest Will Follow. If this film proves anything it is that Pelin Esmer is a gifted storyteller, capable of weaving together lives that you imagine would never have crossed paths if it weren’t for her story. As one of the characters says, “Who cares about the truth” if the story is good?