Women in Turkish Cinema

Turkish Cinema is the most reliable source to comprehend the Woman’s battle for equality and search for her identity. It also explains us clearly the evolution of the Turkish Woman starting from 60’s, how it turns into a sexual object in 70’s and finally her revolt by screaming out her equality and sexual identity in 80’s.
Women appear to be lost within the discrimination her ethnicity by forgetting her sexual identity within the concept confusion in 90’s…
In 2000’s we see her jumping out of a dark ocean where she had dived deep long time ago. That is the reason why the film ‘Gecerken Ugradim’ (Whilst on My Way) I made in 2006, begins with a young woman that dives into a dark ocean and ends with a scene she jumps out.
It is not actually the story of a young woman writer that I portrayed, it is the story of the Turkish Woman whilst on her way.
The film was made with a revolutionary and innovative approach in addition to the era in 1980’s. It was the first woman movie made after that period… The film was dedicated to Duygu Asena, a controversial woman writer who wrote bravely for the very first time on sexual liberty and identity of the Turkish women in 80’s. Her novel ‘Kadinin Adi Yok’ (The Woman has no Name) caused so many disputations in the country.
Asena passed away while I was writing the script. I was writing a woman story and Asena was dead unexpectedly. I thought, this cannot be a coincidence.
Atif Yilmaz, an important male director then dared to film her novel in the same period. Hale Soygazi was the leading actress. The discussions on her naked scenes in the movie lasted for years.
The concept of’ Whilst on My Way’ which has a deep metaphor was completed with her acting again as Madam Esther in the film, a middle aged liberal and knowledgeable woman who guides a young woman writer to find her real identity.
Following Atif Yilmaz’s style that marked an era, I approached the theme as a new age Turkish woman or the Turkish woman of 2000’s who questions her identity and existence in the universe beyond the barriers of the society.
The time had passed and the woman had moved one step further. Therefore, as a woman director who had grown up with those films, I carried the woman one step ahead. I took her out of her society and her culture into the depth of the space and the universe.
My character was a woman writer researching quantum physics. She was questioning her existence along with the frontiers of the universe within the framework of Einstein’s theory of relativity of Time. As her out social life goes on the same way, her inner world contradicts with the materialistic world.
The conflict between her inner journey and the conformist society in which she lives.
From this point of view, when we go back to the first days of the Turkish Cinema, we are able to understand the long run women had come.
Since the early days of the Turkish Cinema, the subject of women has been used as a basic element in the movies but so often the characters were there because of their sex.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, was a man who was keen on the art of Cinema. This opened the road to the development of the Cinema industry after the Republic’s foundation… He always believed that cinema would provide the recognition and understanding between different nations and cultures.
Yet, ‘Murebbiye,’ (The Governess) which was made before the Republic when Istanbul was under military occupation, contained sexual overtones. It was the first film showing a woman in her underwear. The governess actually talks about a French woman's romantic adventures and how she provoked men in the mansion of a Turkish family in a humorous manner. The film was then banned by French officers in Istanbul. This is considered as the first censorship in the Turkish Cinema, ironically by France, one of today's most liberal countries in the World.
In early years of Turkish Cinema, the lives in films were designed with Islamic patterns… Woman was someone making mistakes. She was tortured on her body as punishment if she ever had made a fault.
Besides, some male directors set out their stories according to some verses in Quran. Some of them told their story in order to criticize the look upon women in an Islamic culture. They recalled a verse which they thought it was something forgotten or miss interpreted.
For instance, referred to the Verse in Quran ‘The Women” which prohibits forcing a woman for sex, In Kuyu (The Well),Metin Erksan, talks about a woman who is being raped constantly by a man.
Muhsin Ertugrul filmed ‘Ateşten Gomlek’ (Shirt of Fire) in 1923. It was based on a novel, written by Halide Edip Adivar, who was an important female writer of the period. His most important discovery in this time was Cahide Sonku, who became very popular due her untypical character; she was blonde, sexy and mysterious. She acted an innocent villager girl successfully in ‘Bataklı Damin Kizi’ (Girl from the Marshy House) in 1934 and a sexy woman who provoked men in ‘Şehvet Kurbanlar’i (Victims of Lust) in 1939. Thus Cahide Sonku was the first example of erotism in the Turkish cinema
‘Vurun Kahpeye’ (Hit the Slut), by Lutfi Akad, talked about a open minded idealist female teacher in a traditionalist small village during the Independence War. The teacher in the film then became the symbol of educated women of the generation. The lynching scene under lined the conservatism of the society as a paradox.
‘Taş Parçasi’ (A Piece of Stone) in 1940 by Faruk Kenc told the story of a woman who betrayed her husband because he was handicapped.
Cahide Sonku sat on the chair of the director directed for,’ Fedakar Ana’ (Selfless Mother), in 1949 and therefore she also became the first female director of the Turkish cinema.
The social crisis shook Turkey between 1950-60, as the country moved into the era of multi-party democracy and that was ended by the military coup of 1960, also affected the Cinema sector. The outcome of this period of upheaval was the movement to “Realist Cinema” and “Problematic Cinema.” It took time for the “pro-cinema generation” of the 1950s to get rid of the influences of the “pro-theater” and “transition” periods.
Another important film in the same period is’ Boş Beşik,’ (The Empty Cradle) focuses on a young woman who is crushed under the tyranny of strict traditions because she can't have a male child.
This new era in the Turkish cinema, full of pain and tears, continued until the 1970s. Muhterem Nur often portrayed an unlucky woman who was forced to prostitution. Therefore, a wrong impression towards women was created in these films. Women were victims. The more the tears increased the more the film producers made money.
Metin Erksan's ‘Susuz Yaz’ (Summer without Water) was awarded the “best film” in Berlin Film Festival in 1964. It concerns the problems of a lonely woman and secret sexual desires as a social problem. The film also emphasizes a woman's exploitation and helplessness against a man. We observe psychopathic features and passionate male actors in Metin Erksan's films.
The reflection of a woman’s sexual life was quite different from 80’s human woman seeking her freedom. Mujde Ar would later in 1980”s add sexuality and nakedness into films within a social con tent. She would act not as an exploited woman but the woman who exploits sometimes.
The actress Turkan Şoray, who had the most innocent image in her early works, also broke this mold, following Ar's footsteps barely 15 years later. On the other hand, in the 1970’s, there was a period in the Turkish Cinema where a woman’s sexuality will always be remembered as a shame.
In terms of erotism being portrayed in the Cinema, we can consider Refig as the first director who used woman's body in a functional way along with an affair between two women (lesbianism). Refig actually argued the limited heterosexual relations in the closed atmosphere of the harem. From this perspective, women sometimes directed their desires to other women.
However, the erotic scenes of the films in 1960s are so innocent in comparison with the films in 70’s.
The pressure of economic circumstances in early 70’s caused a search in the Cinema for a solution to attract people back to the theaters. Cinema created a sort of sex-comedy that included amply sexual elements.
Now the theaters were under male sovereignty. A new age which was a sex era in the Turkish cinema was beginning.
The industry then created its naked female stars… Arzu Okay, Zerrin DoÄŸan, Zerrin EÄŸeliler ve Dilber Ay'ın are some of them…
The stars spent their lives in cheap hotels rather than fame or money and their life stories were full of drugs, alcohol and suicides. Seher Seniz committed suicide while Feri Cansel was stabbed.
After the era of sex glut ended, hundreds of movies exhibiting woman flesh remained.
This was followed by the revolt of Turkish woman in 80; s Cinema, who expressed herself with her sexual identity rather than a sexual object.
The new contemporary woman was shown as an intellectual, economically independent and free to live her sexuality.
‘Mine’ by Atif Yilmaz, (1982), was the first film from the perspective of a married woman's relationship with a stranger.
After the rapid growth of the women's movement in the 1980s, women appeared on the screen not separated in categories such as madonna or evil but as one person who had all these characteristics: A human woman.
In ‘Teyzem’ (My Aunt’) by Halit Refig, we view a lonely woman who goes into a mental sickness in a conservative neighborhood. She comes back home after an unsuccessful marriage. She commits suicide in the end.
In ‘Asilacak Kadin’ (The Woman to be Hung) by Basar Sabuncu, a pervert husband offers his miserable wife to other men sexually. A young man, who falls in love with her, kills the husband. The trial sentences her death penalty.
In ‘ Ah Belinda’ an actress finds herself as the wife of an uneducated and rude man with three kids. She cannot prove that she is in fact someone else and is condemned to cook and look after the kids.
‘Dunden Sonra Yarindan Once’ (Before Tomorrow after Yesterday) released in 1988, a woman TV producer sacrifices for her new baby and husband and she quits her job. However, she is betrayed by her husband.
The golden age in the Women Cinema ended by the identity confusion in 1990’s. We came across a woman who got lost within the questions of ethnicity by forgetting her sexual equality as a human. This brought discrimination to the women issue in the Cinema. Women’s unity in their struggle for their identity was broken.
Revolutionism was Ataturk’s main principle. ‘Gecerken Ugradim’ (Whilst on My Way), the first woman film after 80’s, described the “new age Turkish woman” within the framework of Quantum Physics.
Living behind the social barriers or overflowing beyond the universe?
The Turkish woman in 2000’s, was seeking the same answers not in her society this time but in her universe. She was the same woman maybe, refusing to be pushed backwards, but rather than questioning her society, she was seeking her answers in the universe.
She was a brand new woman who wanted to travel in time. She ran over her sexual and social identity to the wide universe.
She never believed that everything had an end but had faith in that every end was a new beginning. She did not stay within the vicious circle of Newton’s old fashioned physical laws, but she lifted up from the physical world through Einstein’s window.
When she closed her eyes in silence… In the moment of immobility, she discovered the beauty of infinity…
BM