an interview with Tolga Karacelik

Although his feature debut Tool Booth was one of the discoveries in the national competition of the Antalya Film Festival 2010 (Best First Film, Best Cinematographer, Best Actor – Serkan Ercan), the jury of the Istanbul Film Festival did not pay attention to his unquestionable talent. However, Tolga Karacelik definitely deserves a special focus. Born in 1981 in Istanbul, he studied Law at the Marmara University and Film in New York. His latest short film Rapunzel won the Audience award at the Soho International Film Festival and was shown at Berlinale, and his first feature Toll Booth is an introvert trip within the soul of a man who fights his everyday life of a robot and his father’s repressive attitude. Frankly, I was expecting an author of a film about loneliness to be a hard approaching interviewee, but Tolga is rather bright, talkative and honest when discussing personal issues in his film.

by Mariana Hristova

What inspired you to make a film about such a complicated relationship between a son and his father? I wrote the script of Toll Booth when I was 27 or 28-years-old. I see the toll booth as an object in the middle of two points – when you start a journey, the toll booth is in the middle of your trip. It doesn’t belong nor to the starting, neither to the ending point. So, if you think about my age as a male who is supposed to become what’s called to be “a man”, I was in the changing phase of my life. That’s what inspired me for the plot of Toll Booth. And also the idea of living in a box (not being able to go anywhere) made me to see the toll booth as a metaphor. Do you feel yourself living in a box? Exactly, don’t you? We live in a box which is our house, we get in a box, which is our car, then we go to another box, which is our office. That’s what our life is about. When I became closer to my thirties, feeling in the middle of something and not belonging to the starting point or to the ending point, I had my own issues to solve with the main male figure in my life – the father. This is what shaped my movie.

However, considering your age, the movie is very mature. The main character is 35-years-old which is a different stage in life. If it’s not a too personal question, is the story biographical somehow? Of course, there are some autobiographical elements because I am the author of the movie. I shot six short movies before Toll Booth and all of them are related to me in a way. But are you asking me if I had such problems with my father? I would rather tell you that my biggest problem is thinking too much (laughing). If you start questioning about everything around you, you end up in a place or a situation you might not like. What I mainly like about my character Kenan is the similarity of our loneliness. In every contact we think that we meet the other person but what we actually face is his loneliness.

But Kenan’s loneliness is on the edge of madness…

I refuse to comment this statement (laughing)!

Ok, I don’t insist on. What happened at the end of the film actually? Did Kenan got mad because he seemed like that? Do you know this bullshit:“The Sun Will Shine Again After the Darkest Hour”? The situation in Toll Booth is similar and I think that Kenan needs this state of mind to live through something bigger. We cannot say even from the beginning that he is normal. I don’t want to obtrude my interpretation to the audience but this is what was supposed to happen. After that point depends on Kenan himself how it will go. But I am an optimistic person and believe that he will manage to survive his psychological state for good.

Kenan says to his beloved woman: “I can come with you now because my father is dead.” Does that mean that one should metaphorically kill his father to become a grown up? This is too much Freudian, right? I don’t want to simplify the story in that way, let’s just say this is Kenan’s individual case. And concerning my father, for instance, he’s been always a friend of mine and I never had this repressing male authority which contains pluses and minuses. Every story is different, every father and son relationship is different but generally you have to achieve yourself, to take responsibility for all your belongings such as nationality, religion or important decisions in life. Attachments are something good but at certain point they become suffocating. It turns out that authority restricts you to become yourself. Maybe it means that you should also avoid love and any kind of relationship to be free but I don’t have a real answer for myself, that’s why I shoot films.

Why Kenan is so shy with women? I think the reason lies in the essence of the female figure in the family. His mother has gone when he was five, his father just did his job taking care of him but not trying to find a substitute for the woman in the family. Kenan’s problem is the lack of the mother but also the father’s approach who was not able to show affection – we could see it obviously in some scenes. This obstructs Kenan to contact with people all around and his communication is disturbed.

How did you choose Serkan Erkan for the part of Kenan? He acted in a movie three years ago. When I saw him, I was already working on the script and said to myself that he is going to play the leading role in Toll Booth although I needed some time to clear up things in the story. Afterwards forgot about this idea. And then I wrote the script without thinking of Serkan as Kenan but at the end remembered of him, contacted him and not only that he played in my film but now we are very close friends – see each other several times a week to go out to have fun. I am also familiar with his sense of humor and felt really pity I couldn’t show him smiling in the movie as his character Kenan is the saddest person in the world. Serkan is actually an entertainer and the role was hard for him but he did his best to be persuasive. Finally, we had around 900 shots of him for the film until he reached what I expected. He even had some psychological problems after we ended shooting… So Kenan turned to be contagious? Yes, but Serkan overcame this period quickly – now he’s partying all the time which means that he is in a perfect shape (laughing).