With Yellow Letters, Ilker Çatak delivers another pressure cooker following The Teachers’ Lounge. This time, working with an all Turkish cast, he shoots Hamburg as Istanbul and Berlin as Ankara. The film may not try to give you a heart attack as its predecessor did, but the anguish facing its protagonists is no less intense.
Özgü Namal and Tansu Biçer are excellent as an actress-writer couple who come under authoritarian scrutiny after their play angers the regime. Their once-harmonious partnership begins to fracture under the strain of government repression and the harsh realities of economic survival. Composer Marvin Miller reunites with the director and serves up another tension builder.
It is fitting that Çatak chose to film it in a different country than where it’s set, as the themes are universally relevant and feel particularly timely.
