“Dump of Untitled Pieces” (2026) suffers from the same issues as its protagonist. Written and directed by Melik Kuru, this Turkish film follows a 26-year-old photographer who hasn’t sketched out any roadmap for her life. Her art school professor believes her work doesn’t say anything specific about her and considers that specificity necessary for her to stand out among her contemporaries.
She doesn’t seem to have a strong worldview as well. The film shares those flaws, as it doesn’t offer anything new or revolutionary either. So, it falls into the lane of coming-of-age projects like “Frances Ha” or “The Worst Person in the World,” sans their complexity. Kuru’s film is a similarly relatable, occasionally effervescent snapshot of a 20-something woman’s life. It revolves around Asli (Manolya Maya), an art school student working on her photography assignment.
The film introduces her on a bus as she takes pictures of strangers with her digital camera. She follows a theme where she photographs her subjects’ hands when they are not aware of her presence. It might be because she wants to capture those candid moments as authentically as possible without any intervention. Yet, while doing so, she is technically invading their privacy, which leads her into minor trouble.
In the following chapter, the script doesn’t offer a specific insight into her thought process behind that work. That’s why, judging from what we see, she seems to be a decent photographer, skilled in framing and composition, who doesn’t speak as enthusiastically about her work as her classmates. She believes the work should speak for itself and is confident about her skills, but that doesn’t cut it for one of her professors.
His pragmatism makes him realize what she lacks and what she needs to do to get paid for her work. That’s when the film introduces its critique of the art world, where self-expression has become a commodity, packaged and sold instead of analyzed and appreciated for its artistic value, and the person is valued based on their ability to market themselves.
It’s certainly a relevant discussion, whether now or in 2023, when Asli faces these issues. Yet, the film remains limited to surface-level observations about the art trade and restricts its own narrative scope. In between, the script does introduce a compelling line of thought that such breezy films rarely highlight.
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A gallerist, whom Asli meets to sell some of her photographs, mentions how Western art collectors look at work from their part of the world solely through the lens of tragedy. They often expect the artists’ work to reflect intense pain, trauma, and suffering, probably because that’s all they can think of when they think about people living in those spaces. Yet, the script never expands on this salient theme, leaving it just as a footnote in Asli’s journey.
It wouldn’t have been as much of an issue if the script had highlighted how that insight affected Asli’s life or given a deeper understanding of her interiority. Instead, we learn very little about her beyond the most obvious observations. Since she was born in a fairly privileged family, her struggles are far more internal than external. The film becomes moderately engaging in addressing those, largely due to Maya’s earnest performance and Baris Aygen’s beautiful camerawork. Yet, while her character is intriguing, the characterization is pretty weak in exploring her struggles, whether as an artist or a woman stuck in a rut.
Her quarter-life crisis would definitely be relatable to anyone who has been through that peculiar phase. Yet, the script doesn’t do enough to analyze her fears of irrelevance or being proven wrong. It’s also strange that it never explores her and her flatmate, Murat’s (played by Ekremcan Arslandag), social lives and shows them only with each other for the most part, even when neither seems like a recluse. Let’s say they don’t have any romantic partners. They must have at least some friends to help them with their emotional or financial problems. The absence of any similar character turns the film into a largely listless affair, with only bouts of spark.
The film becomes a little more interesting when it leans into a meta-fictional territory through some shots that seem inspired by Abbas Kiarostami’s films like “Taste of Cherry” or “The Koker” trilogy. Some other shots seem inspired by the restless spirit of the French New Wave. Yet, they appear only fleetingly and aren’t complex enough to make a sizeable dent in the overall experience. Asli’s arc is also limited to the conventional framework of this genre. That’s unfortunate, considering Maya’s sincere, committed performance that captures Asli’s overwhelming ennui quite well. She compels you to watch her character go through these motions of life, even when the script fails to engage you.
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