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  • ANKARA: Turkish Cinema Digs Deep Into Recent History

    TURKISH CINEMA DIGS DEEP INTO RECENT HISTORY

    Hurriyet, Turkey
    April 29 2013

    ANKARA - Hurriyet Daily News

    The 'postmodern' coup of Feb. 28, 1997 continues to have repercussions
    in Turkey's political and everyday life. Two new movies this week focus
    on the events leading to the coup and its late aftermath respectively

    Photo: Two new Turkish films 'Qufur' and 'Hile Yolu' (Deception) both
    released this week, are deeply influenced by the whole history of Feb.

    28, 1997 and its aftermath up to one-and-a-half-decades later.

    The repercussions of the Feb. 28 process, or the "postmodern" coup
    as referred to by many, continue to define the political, social,
    educational, and even the artistic atmosphere in today's Turkey. The
    process took its name from a meeting of the National Security Council
    on Feb. 28, 1997, a time when the military had more power than the
    elected government.

    Following the infamous meeting, the military issued a memorandum
    imposing decisions to cement the secularist ideology in the face of a
    perceived threat by the rising Islamist ideology. The prime minister,
    Necmettin Erbakan of the Welfare Party, and the coalition government,
    was forced to sign a set of decisions, some of which banned the
    headscarf in the universities, shut down Quranic schools, abolished
    the Sufi orders, and raised the total amount of compulsory education
    to eight years.

    The Feb. 28 process eventually led to the resignation of Erbakan and
    his coalition government after just one year in office. The government
    was forced out without dissolving the Parliament or suspending the
    Constitution, hence the name "postmodern" coup. The process since
    then has fuelled a polarization between conservative Islamists and
    secularists that is visible not only in political power games but
    in everyday life, which has come to define the dynamics of 21st
    century Turkey.

    Two new Turkish films, both released this week, are deeply influenced
    by the whole history of Feb. 28, 1997 and its aftermath up to
    one-and-a-half-decades later.

    Muslum Gunduz and Fadime Å~^ahin were the actors of a national scandal
    in late 1996, whose names became symbols in the lead up to the Feb. 28
    process. Gunduz was the devoted anti-secularist leader of the Aczmendi
    community, a self-proclaimed Islamic order. He was arrested by the
    police in December 1996 in a house where he was found with Å~^ahin,
    a 22-year-old female student, which led to an investigation in which
    it was alleged that she was being shared sexually among the leaders
    of the community.

    Confronting recent history in Turkish cinema

    The scandal is the obvious inspiration for one of this week's new
    releases, "Qufur." At the center of the movie, co-directed by Mustafa
    Delazy and Arafat Å~^avata, is an Islamic sect whose leaders and
    male members find Islam to be the best medium of exploitation for
    their personal aggrandizement, taking in some unsuspecting - and
    others not so unsuspecting - young women to be their blissful and
    blessed companions.

    The movie begins with the leader of the sect, the faux-sheikh Limon
    Hodja, finding himself a much younger woman, promising her family
    a place in heaven in exchange for her hand (and more). However, the
    Hodja's unexpected death triggers a chain of events within the sect
    to replace him - mostly the lowest form of power games. In the midst
    of all the brouhaha, young love blossoms. The young couple trying to
    run away from the sect operate as an antithesis to the false leaders
    abusing Islam for money, power and sex.

    Murders of Armenians

    Another new release, director and writer Ersin Kana's "Hile Yolu" (By
    Way Of By Way Of Deception), takes us to another secret organization,
    a sleeper cell targeting non-Muslim minorities. The recent series of
    murders of Armenian women in Istanbul is one of the many darker corners
    of Turkey's recent history that serves as an inspiration to the movie.

    Albeit half-heartedly, the film looks at the intricate dynamics
    among the organization, the police and the deep state, working more
    as a crime drama than a political one. "Hile Yolu" focuses on the
    story by looking into the relationships among its leading characters,
    the trigger-happy young men, who have been fed with hate and a sense
    of manufactured accomplishment in order to fill the void created by
    polarization, lack of education, and unemployment.

    A missing hard drive at the heart of the story turns out to contain
    crucial information on the murder of Turkish-Armenian editor and
    journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, and on the Ergenekon investigation, an
    operation into an alleged organization consisting mostly of military
    forces planning to overthrow the government, and to many, a revenge
    operation for the Feb. 28's postmodern coup. While touching on many
    grave matters in Turkey's recent history, the film uses them merely
    as a backdrop for its crime story. "Qufur" and "Hile Yolu" may only
    be average, for different reasons, for both box-office audiences
    and art-house lovers. Still, the two films hint at a new direction
    Turkish cinema is taking, confronting the very recent history and
    its repercussions.

    April/29/2013

    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-cinema-digs-deep-into-recent-history.aspx?pageID=238&nID=45800&NewsCatID=381


    From: Baghdasarian
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