The Turkish film Zephyr (Zefir), which won the prize for the best screenplay in the national competition of the 30th Istanbul Film Festival, creates an exceptional postcard of natural settings in proportion to the human world. Through stateliness, liveliness and pulsation writer-director Belma Bas tells her story about one young girl, the emptiness she finds in herself, her longing and anxiety which are always present and prevent her from feeling and uniting with the beauty which surrounds her.
Zephyr tells the story of a young girl, a pre-teen, who is constantly waiting for her mother to return. In her dreams, her mother is the one who brings fear because of the uncertainty of her presence, as well as beauty, love, care and belonging. The mother can be compared to the powers of nature and their eternal unpredictibility.
Young Zefir is constantly sitting on the hill and watching the road, expecting that one day her mother will appear, that one day the burden which constantly is in her heart will disappear. Her grandmother and grandfather take care of her as much as they can, but as her grandmother says, they can’t replace her parents. Zefir apparently has no father, and her mother has her own life in which there is no place for her.
It’s very interesting that Bas tells us this story without any pathos, without tears, without blame. All the misfortune and tragedy the director of the movie shows us is paralleled by the swelling of nature; with beautiful landscapes, sometimes overwhelmed by diversity in color, sometimes dark, sometimes gray and unclear, but always full of life. Although that life, with all of its magnificent vibrations, bypasses Zefir, it leaves impressions that delight and disturb us in equal parts. In those impressions live the restlessness and longing, the incredibly sad looks, and inexhaustible desires and fantasies of young Zefir, and her hope that she will one day find the last piece in the puzzle which returns her to life.
The ideas of the young director Belma Bas are fascinating. In this film she talks about remarkably simple things, archetypical situations of belonging, of the need to be loved, of the imperative for care and attention, of the need for family, a secure place and identity. Through aggression and indifference, through the need of Zefir to inflict pain, and even sometimes to destroy the fountain of life, the movie symbolically talks about an interruption in the balance of nature, which has serious consequences.
Bas shows Zefir’s pain, which grows from scene to scene, in a fantastically visual manner, with a very good editing rhythm, with spontaneity and illusory tranquility. Meanwhile, the swelling of life in nature and in young Zefir’s soul unfolds in parallel. Zefir cannot unite with everything around her until finds her own peace; that peace will come when she find a way to keep her mother. Bas emphasizes this symbolically with the scene in which Zefir perceives and accepts the lost cow Negris, while in her eyes, with which the film begins, the world now has a different reflection.
Zephyr is a film about restlessness and love. It’s a film which at the same time hurts and excites because Bas succeeds in finding a way to talk about mother nature and her strength, and her ability to bring peace and restlessness in an unpredictable and unexpected ways. The director here shows the natural order of life, which in general follows the same rules and codes for everyone and everything. That is to say, in nature is our power, but our evil too, especially when nature takes an unnatural course.
© FIPRESCI 2011
The Turkish film Zephyr (Zefir), which won the prize for the best screenplay in the national competition of the 30th Istanbul Film Festival, creates an exceptional postcard of natural settings in proportion to the human world. Through stateliness, liveliness and pulsation writer-director Belma Bas tells her story about one young girl, the emptiness she finds in herself, her longing and anxiety which are always present and prevent her from feeling and uniting with the beauty which surrounds her.Zephyr tells the story of a young girl, a pre-teen, who is constantly waiting for her mother to return. In her dreams, her mother is the one who brings fear because of the uncertainty of her presence, as well as beauty, love, care and belonging. The mother can be compared to the powers of nature and their eternal unpredictibility.Young Zefir is constantly sitting on the hill and watching the road, expecting that one day her mother will appear, that one day the burden which constantly is in her heart will disappear. Her grandmother and grandfather take care of her as much as they can, but as her grandmother says, they can’t replace her parents. Zefir apparently has no father, and her mother has her own life in which there is no place for her. It’s very interesting that Bas tells us this story without any pathos, without tears, without blame. All the misfortune and tragedy the director of the movie shows us is paralleled by the swelling of nature; with beautiful landscapes, sometimes overwhelmed by diversity in color, sometimes dark, sometimes gray and unclear, but always full of life. Although that life, with all of its magnificent vibrations, bypasses Zefir, it leaves impressions that delight and disturb us in equal parts. In those impressions live the restlessness and longing, the incredibly sad looks, and inexhaustible desires and fantasies of young Zefir, and her hope that she will one day find the last piece in the puzzle which returns her to life. The ideas of the young director Belma Bas are fascinating. In this film she talks about remarkably simple things, archetypical situations of belonging, of the need to be loved, of the imperative for care and attention, of the need for family, a secure place and identity. Through aggression and indifference, through the need of Zefir to inflict pain, and even sometimes to destroy the fountain of life, the movie symbolically talks about an interruption in the balance of nature, which has serious consequences. Bas shows Zefir’s pain, which grows from scene to scene, in a fantastically visual manner, with a very good editing rhythm, with spontaneity and illusory tranquility. Meanwhile, the swelling of life in nature and in young Zefir’s soul unfolds in parallel. Zefir cannot unite with everything around her until finds her own peace; that peace will come when she find a way to keep her mother. Bas emphasizes this symbolically with the scene in which Zefir perceives and accepts the lost cow Negris, while in her eyes, with which the film begins, the world now has a different reflection. Zephyr is a film about restlessness and love. It’s a film which at the same time hurts and excites because Bas succeeds in finding a way to talk about mother nature and her strength, and her ability to bring peace and restlessness in an unpredictable and unexpected ways. The director here shows the natural order of life, which in general follows the same rules and codes for everyone and everything. That is to say, in nature is our power, but our evil too, especially when nature takes an unnatural course. © FIPRESCI 2011