Nothing In Its Place (2024) ‘São Paulo Film Festival’ Movie Review: Burak Çevik Distils a Modest but Grimly Exacting Peek into Turkey’s Political Chasms

Burak Çevik’s somber, pared-down period drama “Nothing In Its Place” plunges into the storm of political instability and unrest in Turkey that preceded the 1980 coup d’état. A night’s events map out the larger national mood, steeped in heightened precarity and unreliability. At any moment, by the ominousness that pervades the air, the threat of trouble can crash in.

All of it, however, is predicated on a single defining question: is violence the only expedient to a political course of action? A bunch of young leftists sit around a table, meditating on the classic tussle between armed and non-violent political agendas. Which is more befitting of the present state of national affairs? Most of them are adamant about their approach. They invited the opposing side for a meeting though chances of it materialising run low.

“Nothing In Its Place” is a maelstrom of conflicts within resistance. There’s factionalism and infighting on display. Stripes of disagreement run deep. It’s a dialectic tussle that generates the shifting undercurrents swimming beneath the sliver of a narrative. There’s also the far-right nationalist group, the Grey Wolves, to contend with. The group of youths grapples with being labeled as soft and revisionist in their ideological thinking.

They are debating the spirit of a magazine they’ve just published, the way forward. Doubts and uncertainty are part of the discussion. Should the magazine remain theoretical or accommodate action-oriented beliefs? Rifts in scientific socialism loom large. As they chat and reflect, shards of genuflection peep in. Would a little bit of armed resistance hurt at all? How long can they afford to keep up rigid silos among themselves? To do so would only give wind to the fascist pull.

Nothing In Its Place (2024) — A still from “Nothing In Its Place” (2024)

In the contained precincts of the film unfurls strongly drawn battle lines. Dissent is sharp, militant, and restless. The energy in the room may be dimmed but it almost feels like it’s about to burst out. No individual character is specifically textured. The focus stays tight and unwavering on a prevailing group configuration, even when the camera occasionally snakes away from the discussion to tail a particular character. Whispers of suspicion swirl, and unease spreads. Why does one of them possess a Grey Wolves book? He insists it’s for research, to understand the other side. The other remonstrates, isn’t an attempt to understand halfway into the justification for their means?

“Nothing in Its Place” sticks to a distance in its framing. We are kept at an observant arm’s length away from the characters, with whom little emotional affiliation is spun. We watch the men as they think loud and through the tactics available and the possible need to forge greater networks across the bridge, even if differences exist. A sense of a clock ticking somewhere, with quiet but formidable exigency, thickens the proceedings. When a clash breaks out, or worse, extreme violence, the camera cuts away to fix its gaze upon the overhead lamp. Retribution is exacted.

For all their purported non-violence, the socialists aren’t above reproach either. Both sides – the comrades and the far-right – are locked in an intense, unsparing, seemingly interminable feud. Each has slain people belonging to the other. There’s no scope for accountability, only surreptitious, heedless rushes of vigilante avenging. Burak Çevik locates the morass cutting across ideological lines within an endless loop. The future doesn’t carry so much hope as it does a blunter, more severe reiteration of bloodshed and chaos. “Nothing in Its Place” expertly evokes the fog of divisiveness and violence which bleeds all the way from the past, ramming deep ahead into the future. In its microscopic look at a particular historical moment with all its loaded dilemmas, the film’s restive, forbidding concerns spill out wide.