Mustang (2015)

> The clash of culture and modern lifestyle.

This is a Turkish film with the Turkish cast and crew, but financially co-supported by France. So it was nominated for the 88th American Academy Awards to represent France, after the Turkish film board denied to pick it. The film is set in the rural that tells a story of five young orphaned sisters who were raised by their stereotype grandmother and strict uncle. It depicts how those girls grow up without the parental supervise which is more essential than under others care and challenges they face due to difference between modern lifestyle they want to adopt and old traditions they inherited.

I know everybody comparing it with 'The Virgin Suicides' and so I thought the same because that's what everyone thinks who had watched these two films. There are some similarities between these two titles, but not the same film, that's very clear. Because of the cultural difference they slightly drew a different storyline, other than that the core of the story remained same. Written and directed by a woman filmmaker, so the narrative was very good that details the issues surrounding women. Especially about the impact of the lives when people nose into others affair.

It opens when the five sisters were punished by their grandmother after the report came from their neighbour lady for them playing on the beach with the boys. Thereafter their life changes and day by day their happiness declines for the severely imposed rules against them in the house. Later, one after another, they all forced to marry the groom they have chosen for them in a traditional way. But the youngest among them all is the most rebellious, so when her sisters were enforced, she plans to fight back and that's the remaining story that tells what happens with the remaining sisters.

> "I don't care about the match, I want to get the hell out."

They say Turkey is more a Europe than the middle-east, except being an Islam nation. But this film briefs the domestic abuse in the name of culture and religion on the young generation. The truth is, there is an upcoming culture of the future among the youngsters of the human earthlings in the line of one planet, one culture. That is nothing, but getting themselves free from the thousands of years old rules. Obviously, in this advanced science and digital world, they're completely outdated, especially islam is struggling to cooperate with the future world. From that perspective, this film narrated a wonderful, an eye opening tale.

I have heard the Turkish origins who had watched the film arguing about what it depicted is not true. I know that they know better than me on this, but what I want to tell is that any nation and its people go through this kind of cultural struggle/revolution. Especially in the remote places who are cut off from the modern lifestyle in their daily routine, and when the chief of the house is an elder person who is very conservative. Whatever the advanced country is Turkey among other islam countries, there's still the gender equality issue's persist due to the religion. Of course not the whole nation, but among the orthodox families. That's the same fate of other nations and its religion as well that has to change.

I have seen many Turkish films and this was very different from those, especially it digs on the positive and negative impacts of the old cultural practice which questions is it really necessary to carry on in this modern world? I am not a religious person, and I have no problem with the people of faith, but my take on this might really irk them. The elders should give chance to choose what their youngsters want, of course with supervised, instead forcing them to do everything in the old way what they and their parents did decades and centuries ago.

Yep, the film deserved it's Oscars nominee, but it did not win the prestigious award and that's okay because a better film bagged it. This director is going to have a great future in the filmdom, like the next Sofia Coppola. I hope her next work would be an international project. In the meantime, if you haven't seen it, give it a try, it is a good film that briefs in the line between the past and the future, there is present that ever exist where everything happens like the pains of the past, the present revolution and the future plan.

7/10

This is quite a confusing film to appreciate as it’s not entirely clear who it is for. It depicts the family lives of five orphaned girls who range from early teens to early womanhood who are living with their guardians on the coast of Northern Turkey. It’s after some fun, fully clothed, japes in the sea with some equally clothed lads that one of their neighbours complains of their “scandalous” behaviour. Of course, their grandmother (Nihal G. Koldas) goes a bit incandescent but not as much as the man of their household “Uncle Erol” (Ayberk Pekcan) who irrationally concludes that they have been permitted too much freedom and liberty as they have grown up, and that has got to stop. Slowly, but surely, they find their home becoming more like a secure waiting room for the marriage bed as they are, one by one, manoeuvred into advantageous marriages - whether they like it or not! Now these girls are no shrinking violets, and so work to find ways to still enjoy some of the freedoms they fear that they will lose whilst each of the older girls take differing views on their future roles and happiness. The five girls perform engagingly here, as does the conflicted Koldas but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to take from this. One level it’s a fairly brutal critique on women inhibited by tradition and custom and forced into lives they neither wanted nor sought. On the other hand, though, there are endorsements of the cultural benefits of respect and honour, and these girls don’t opt universally for either path. There are scenarios here that will stick in the throat of just about everyone whilst also offering hope - of one variety or another - too. It’s possibly from the perspective of the youngest girl “Lale” (Günes Sensoy) that we can make the most sense as she, barely into double digits, is left largely unhindered by their marital plotting but who sentiently observes just how the imposition of husbands, potential and actual, in the lives of her sisters profoundly changes the dynamic she has known since she was born. The production is lively and the photography gets up close and personal - a useful technique when demonstrating emotions that are this powerful from amongst a family whose love for each other isn’t ever questioned, but whose respect for each other and for their attitudes is the thing to watch ebb and flow. It’s not an easy watch, nor is it entirely one-sided as the boys don’t have too much say in their futures either, but it is that very lack of straightforwardness that makes it a bit more interesting and thought provoking.