Today after classes were over, we saw a Turkish film called Mutluluk, or in English: Happiness. It was about a girl in the east of Turkey who had been raped. After being traumatized, she is made an outcast by the village as the blame for the rape is placed on her. She is refered to as 'unclean' many times. The plot progresses much more than this, but it's the idea of the film that is so compelling. Seeing Multuluk for the second time, I appreciated what the filmmaker was trying to accomplish. Did he suceed fully? I don't think so. But the issue of tradition versus modernity is brought up.
Turkish cinema, in my opinion, is in the process of inventing itself. It has traditionally lagged behind other cinematic traditions, Iranian cinema being a higly developped and complex example. But Turkish cinema can achieve something other regional cinematic traditions cannot for the moment: it can be daring. Could Mutluluk be made in Iran for example? Not the the degree it was in Turkey. Leila is a highly complex Iranian film dealing with societal issues, but the director cannot be 100% straightforward with the audience. (Which, in fact, adds to the allure of the film in many ways).
But Turkish cinema can be bold, can probe societal questions because Turkey itself is opening up. It's opening up religiously, opening up to both east and west, it's opening up culturally too. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Reha Erdem, Abdullah Oğuz, these are the faces of a new Turkish cinema.
No comments:
Post a Comment