Nino Kovačić assembles and then summarizes the National Competition of the local feature films. Here is found subjects and themes that include family dramas, personal freedom in Istanbul and beyond, plenty of death, and somehow lots of tomatoes.
The National Competition of the 43rd Istanbul film festival was again a showcase of the yearly selection of ten diverse Turkish fiction (mostly first) features that amongst each other presented the new and the old stories and themes within the Turkish cinema, as well as stylistic longings, emerging talents, but also apparent production handicaps, foremost due to insufficient public funding support of Turkish cinema in general. Most films were taking on the realms of family dramas and were dealing with death topics, either through the deaths of close ones haunting the protagonists, or the prospects of incoming death and murder. The action of films was mostly situated in Istanbul, where the film industry is the strongest, but Turkish provinces, as well as locations and characters from abroad or living abroad, were part of the mosaic forming the film reality of present day Turkey. Also, there was a conspicuously surprising amount of tomatoes seen in the films.
The Reeds by Cemil Ağacıkoğlu was one of the location exceptions, taking place in a poor village where most inhabitants live from harvesting canes. This rural jealously-revenge-murders story where the protagonist faces a corrupt system did not play out as a thriller, but more a two hour (too) long philosophical pondering about the individual and group morality, and the nature of crime, entailing mostly scares landscape and dialogues. With an ambition to be epic and ‘anthropological’, relying heavily on the visual set ups and acting, which neither came through intriguingly, it gave a deja vu feeling of something that might have been filmed in the 1950s or ‘60s and could have perhaps been cinematically relevant then.
Rosinante, a first feature by Baran Gündüzalp, on the other hand, set in the urban jungle of modern Istanbul, had a much less epic striving. Centered on a young family with an autistic child, it revolves around a high-educated couple trying to make it through the everyday with low paid jobs, while the living costs and especially the rent, like in most big European cities nowadays, are increasing and becoming unaffordable. Essentially, a film about a working class and male-female relations and expectations, Rosinante is also a low budget film that successfully presents the struggle of disillusioned young people who, although having alternatives, try to maintain their big city hopes by force and at the expense of their own child. The name of the film is taken from the scooter that is the family’s ‘driving force’, which just like Rosinante, the old horse of Don Quixote, carries the protagonists through unrealistic adventures. This reference also signifies the general impression of the film: the simple metaphor is easily understandable and the characters and the story are relatable; however, more writing and directorial skill would have provided a stronger audience grip. Nevertheless, the final, although expected, scene does partially make up for it.
A different class of people is presented in Afloat, the first feature by Aslıhan Ünaldı. The protagonist is an artist living in the US with her American husband, who comes home to Turkey for summer holidays after years abroad. She unravels a drama upon family members and their relationships with a dominating and self-centered father. This two-hour film is mostly happening on the yacht of the family, and unless you are a soap opera fan, which is not far from the general style of the film, it will hardly satisfy anybody’s desire for a well written, directed, edited, acted… (feel free to continue) cinema experience.
Ozan Yoleri, in his first feature Inpaintings, also deals with an artistic soul: at the beginning we watch a young woman ‘comfortably’ mourning a death of a friend while sadly reading at the riverbank of Seine, as she lives in Paris working as an apprentice in an art restoration studio. Inpaintings’ main character is the emotional resonator of the world around her, but outside of the stereotypical relationships and expected events in that setting, the film does not break the superficial surface of a promised interesting inner life of the protagonist. Luckily, this film does in it less than two hours, if that is of any consolation.
The Grand Siege by Sinan Kesova, a more successful first feature, brings out a different set of characters and family dynamics, with successfully unhinged yet contained, bizarre but everyday humor to it. With another story centered upon the male-female and father-mother-daughter-son relationship, the plot is specific because of a lingering personality of an influential deceased woman. After the death of his wife, the protagonist, a retired successful business man reflects upon his life and legacy, starting a process of organizing the desired future for his alienated daughter and son, but without a desire to disrupt his own autistic life routines. In an almost Molieresque turn of events, driven foremost by the old man’s fears, the film especially excels due to the performance by Alp Öyken.
Another debut, Belongings by Mete Gümürhan, written by the Amsterdam-based Chris Westendorp, is a coming-of-age story which is in its plot obviously influenced by it being a Dutch-Turkish co-production. The teenage protagonist unwillingly moves from his native Rotterdam to his father’s Istanbul after the death of his mother and has to adapt to a strange and unwelcoming environment. Belongings does not explore much of the inner world of the main character, as it is action and relationship based, but it works well in its coming-of-age template that can surely go well with teenagers and younger audiences who could easily relate to the main character ingredients: he has a particular ‘superpower’, fights of all the challenges of the new environment where he proves himself and gains new friends, respect and, of course, romance. The relationship with his father improves and the grieving process is less burdened. The directing style heavily relies on achieving emotional impact through the characters impulsive reactions, while complex dialogues are substituted by music and pensive head shots, with the unavoidable screaming-wild-driving-with-the-wind-in-the-hair scene (on bikes) as a show of the protagonist gaining new personal freedom.
Also gaining personal freedom from a religious school system and a commanding god-like father are the highlights of another, yet quite different coming of age: Dormitory, a first feature by Nehir Tuna. Proclaimed to be a very personal film by its author, the film is set in 1990s and the protagonist is attending a Muslim religious dormitory while his teenage rebel spirit starts awakening like a volcano. Dormitory is stylistically a very ambitiously envisioned film, but its eclectic directorial style offers an impression of being a first feature showcase of knowing the tricks-of-the-trade, rather than a tightly interwoven <with> portrayal of the characters inner world. Although the flatness of presenting the world around the main character can be partly explained as a reflection of the protagonist own perception and inexperience, it doesn’t justify the too simplistic interpretations when ambitiously taking on how religion, history, power and family influence a young man in his crucial spiritual and physical transition. And, of course, it being a coming-of-age film, there is the obligatory drive-with-the-wind-and-scream scene.
8×8 by Kıvanç Sezer is a far less ambitious film, as it involves only three characters during a couple of days in a remote house by the sea. What sounds like a locked-in horror plot functions more as a filmed play than a directorially envisioned film, although it does play with some elements of horror suspense. The beginning of the film draws upon the heavy load of thematizing suicide, but the action of 8×8 is mostly within the three characters who are trying to verbally outsmart each other, in order to change their mutual situations and gain more power ground, while gradually revealing their troubling past to each other and the viewers.
Not What You Think by Vuslat Saraçoğlu, like 8×8, also strongly relies upon the actors’ performances, with most scenes being statically shot dialogues through which the improvisational freedom given to actors on set is obvious and comes out with varying, but mostly very good results. A story about two brothers and a sister who suddenly have to take care of the deceased father’s inheritance, opens up the family history, old wounds and unresolved issues, with occasional dialogical comic reliefs and an expected big family secret revealed for a clumsy final showdown.
The final film, Hesitation Wound by Selman Nacar, was awarded by the Fipresci jury, and was also a superior film in this competition. Coming from a filmmaker with an in-depth experience of the topic, namely that director Nacar was a lawyer himself; the film atmospherically resembles the works by the so-called Romanian New Wave filmmakers. This dynamic and complex courtroom drama focused on an exceptional female character precisely touches upon engaging social topics through a lens of the local legal system and personal anxieties of the main character. A tight script, confident direction and editing, as well a brilliant acting performance by Tülin Özen, all make up Hesitation Wound’s evidently outstanding production values.
Nino Kovačić
Edited by Steven Yates
© FIPRESCI 2024