Mithat Esmer is a collector. He collects runs of newspapers, hand-powered lanterns, stamps, bottle of drinks, you name it, he collects it and stacks it in his apartment and outside the front door. His apartment leaks because the stacks are pulling the floors open; he scoffs at that explanation, since the floors are rated at 300 kilograms, and all that light paper can't weigh more than a fraction of that.
I don't know what to make of this movie, which is the daily routine of a hoarder. I've known a few in my life. I helped -- or tried to help -- one move, and the process was rendered endless by his insistence on taking everything; when I tried to dump several hundred pencil stubs, he insisted on examining each individually to determine if it was worth transporting halfway across Brooklyn, until I dumped them all in the trash and told him I'd buy him him a box of brand new pencils, which he could sharpen in any of his eight pencil-sharpeners.
I;'m not totally unsympathetic; I've collected things in my life: comic books, VHS tapes, coins, first editions.... nowadays I'm pleased to live in a mostly empty, the walls of which are decorated with paintings and drawings I've accumulated over the years. At a certain point I learned to view myself as more than a collection of things, and I think I'm better for it.
I don't know what to make of this movie, which is the daily routine of a hoarder. I've known a few in my life. I helped -- or tried to help -- one move, and the process was rendered endless by his insistence on taking everything; when I tried to dump several hundred pencil stubs, he insisted on examining each individually to determine if it was worth transporting halfway across Brooklyn, until I dumped them all in the trash and told him I'd buy him him a box of brand new pencils, which he could sharpen in any of his eight pencil-sharpeners.
I;'m not totally unsympathetic; I've collected things in my life: comic books, VHS tapes, coins, first editions.... nowadays I'm pleased to live in a mostly empty, the walls of which are decorated with paintings and drawings I've accumulated over the years. At a certain point I learned to view myself as more than a collection of things, and I think I'm better for it.
