Film review: Same Night Different Blue (Aynı Gecenin Laciverti) has the most ironic plot twist ever

Aynı Gecenin Laciverti (Same Night Different Blue) is a crime thriller where comic animation and live action merge.

The film starts out with a homeless man looking through the small hole of his shelter. Light is seeping in like a laser beam, but what’s the catch here?

Elsewhere are two thieves – Kadir and Yağmur – who decide to go on a brief heist to steal a tiny postage stamp.

The story goes that during World War II, Hitler sent letters to several countries, including Türkiye. Today the stamps on those letters are worth millions, and one is in the possession of an antique dealer in Türkiye. What distinguishes the genuine from the fakes is that the text on the authentic stamp is upside down.

Things go south pretty quickly, when Yağmur swallows the stamp when she’s cornered by the antique dealer’s bodyguard. While she’s being forced to vomit out the stamp, her partner-in-crime Kadir falls to his death off the roof, landing right in front of the homeless man’s shelter.

This is when director Nuri Cihan Özdoğan gives the viewer an ‘Ottoman slap’ with the most ironic plot twist ever, but I can’t spoil the whole movie I’m afraid.

The title makes so much more sense once the credits are rolling though.

“Same Night Different Blue” is all about perspective; how two people can look at the exact same object but see something completely different, and how two people standing right next to each other can have vastly different lives and ambitions.

This short film featured in the programme for this year’s Taste of Anatolia – Films From Turkey film festival.