One-Day Festival January 10, 2009

The Men in Turkish Cinema from the 70s to the Present

Istanbul Modern Cinema is hosting the “One-Day Festival” event series to be held in the first half of 2009 organized by the Turkish Film Critics Association (SİYAD). Moviegoers will have a chance to view four films selected by SİYAD members on January 10, 2009 at Istanbul Modern Cinema.

ZAVALLILAR, 1974
Directors: Yılmaz Güney, Atıf Yılmaz, 72’, Color

Saturday, January 10, 12:00

Left unfinished due to Yılmaz Güney’s imprisonment, Zavallılar was completed by Güney’s master Atıf Yılmaz, and continues to occupy a unique place among portraits of masculinity and victimhood within cinema in Turkey. Like a slap in the face, Zavallılar is a film that portrays the story of three friends who want to stay in prison despite being released because they think it is their only chance to survive the upcoming winter. The film depicts the stories of Arap, Hacı and Abuzer, who are sitting in a park after their release from prison, through flashbacks to analyze the conditions that lead them to crime and socializes poverty and victimization with its “nameless”, unclaimed characters who have been thrown out of the production system. In a world where the only way to survive is to become a part of the chain of crime, and where morality is determined by the way out, being able to feed yourself also means being indebted. Zavallılar is a film that seeks to make its characters not the only debtors in this equation; shrunken with fear, Abuzer gazes at us as the audience in the last frame of the film, and asks.
Övgü Gökçe

İKİ BAŞLI DEV, 1990
Director: Orhan Oğuz, 92’, Color

Saturday, January 10, 14:00

Orhan Oğuz is a director who dealt with unconventional stories in the 1980s and 1990s. İki Başlı Dev is one of his most interesting films, and portrays the tension between a blind manufacturer and his son, who he wants to raise with conservative and elite values of masculinity. In the father role is Cüneyt Arkın, one of the leading actors that come to mind when one thinks about the representations of masculinity in Turkish cinema; in the son role is Fikret Kuşkan, who would later play a young father in My Father and My Son.

A young woman comes between the two men and shatters the reconciliation of masculinity the father had been trying to build. But the film dares to do more; it draws attention to the almost homoerotic affection of the father, who wants to create a world for himself with his son.

The film’s screenplay is by Nuray Oğuz, who wrote the screenplays of several Orhan Oğuz films of that period; hence the film is a story of masculinity viewed through the eyes of a careful woman. Remarkable with its production quality and soundtrack, İki Başlı Dev occupies a unique place between commercial cinema and art-house cinema.
Fatih Özgüven

ON BOARD (GEMİDE), 1998
Director: Serdar Akar, 110’, Color

Saturday, January 10, 16:00

The first project of the New Cinematographers, led by Serdar Akar and Önder Çakar – who have now taken different paths – On Board depicts the in-betweenness of the world of masculinity with all its starkness, and draws attention with its harsh but "correct" emphasis.

In the film, four men, who begin giving piercing clues about their identities (or their lack of identity) with the presence of a woman who enters their world like a “bomb”, and gradually begin to reconsider and unravel their already “unsafe” relationships with one another. The deterioration of their relationships gains traction due to the fact that they all consider the woman as an “enemy”. On Board conveys its argument by promising a “challenging viewing process” in part due to its lack of self-censorship and use of extensive slang.

Treating the creature called man as a punching bag, the film makes the viewer realize from the onset that he is bound to fail the test he will go through with women, and the rest is all downhill from there.

One of the milestone films of “independent” Turkish cinema, which came to the fore during the 1990s, On Board is still as relevant today with its metaphorical approach and rich subtexts reflecting the spirit of its era.
Murat Özer

CLIMATES (İKLİMLER), 2006
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 101’, Color

Saturday, January 10, 18:00

The film’s protagonist, Isa, is the husband in a marriage that seems to have ended even though the two counterparts avoid admitting the situation. His wife, whom he makes an effort not to stand near, a different woman, whom he resorts to when he is in trouble, and various lies that keep these two together are the main threads of Isa’s life. (He also has an academic title and an office at the university.)

It is clear that Isa is bored, it is also clear that he feels trapped. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter whether he is in Kaş or Istanbul or whether it is scorching hot or arctic cold; the facts in question can neither be buried nor vanished. Yet, Isa does not move a finger to modify his situation.

It is possible to address Climates as the story of a man who thinks he has control over his life and the women in his life, but whose life is, in fact, solely shaped by the decisions made by women. This is a man who views the world through the limited, technical, and opaque window of an “instruction manual for life (and people)” that he, himself has developed.

This is exactly why the seasons change, the relationships change, and even the women change, while the man stays put exactly where he is even if he wanders across the world and back.
Uygar Şirin

ISTANBUL MODERN CINEMA IS FREE OF CHARGE FOR MUSEUM VISITORS.