Araf

A young woman working at a drive-in leads a monotonous dead-end life, connected to the outside world only by the drivers. A cruel and beautiful coming-of-age drama with evocatively cold and decorous imagery. "Araf" is Turkish for "purgatory" or "limbo." The director, who says the endless waiting in the "Purgatorio" section of Dante's "Divine Comedy" is undoubtedly its most painful aspect, compares a young woman's stagnation at a drive-in restaurant with purgatory. Her frustration at being stuck in a place with no future near a vital highway linking Istanbul and Ankara has the resonance of the best coming-of-age films from Turkey and around the world. (Tokyo International Film Festival)