"I'll be interested in what you think about Anatolia. It's my favourite of 2012 so far...but it's not for everyone!''
These were the words of Total Film's Simon Kinnear (read his blog http://kinnemaniac.blogspot.co.uk/ ).
Simon is one of the good guys and he and I tend not to be a million miles away in our views of the movies so he had truly piqued my interest.
My verdict in response to him? "Interesting but a bit too meandering and long to put it among my favourites.''
Simon thinks that Nuri Bilge Ceylan's movie is right to be two and a half hours to enable it's thorough character exploration. I can see his point although I don't entirely agree.
But Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is certainly not so dull that it would inspire me to fast-forward my preview DVD as one critic apparently did.
So what's it about? It starts with a night-time search for the body of a murder victim.
An entourage, including a senior police officer (Yilmaz Erdogan), the local prosecutor (Taner Birsal) and a doctor (Muhammet Uzuner) are dragged from field to field by the suspect (Firat Tanis) who cannot remember exactly where he buried the corpse because he had been drunk.
It becomes a very long night and conversations drift from frustration over the task, to gallows humour on to chitchat about normal life.
Indeed, it is filmed in a style which is akin to a documentary in that it's conversations seem so ordinary and natural. This helps make it the movie that folk such as Simon are getting excited about.
Its cleverness lies in the fact that it makes an event which would make headline news seem so matter-of-fact - which is exactly what it is in the lives of those who work on murder scenes.
The flaws in crime investigations are always portrayed in the media as deeply serious. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia shows them to be, at least on this occasion, more cock-up than conspiracy.
Indeed, a couple of times, the Keystone cops nature of the search elicits a bit of a giggle.
But gradually (very gradually) we get to know the key players and more about the sadness which frames their lives.
Laughs: A couple of sniggers
Jumps: none
Vomit: none
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 6/10