Mustang coming to Thame Cinema

SHOWING at the Thame Players Theatre on Sunday, September 18 – Mustang – Turkey, 2016, 95 minutes, 15 certificate

Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, starring Günes Sensoy, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elit Iscan, Ilayda Akdogan, Nihal G. Koldas, Ayberk Pekcan, Bahar Kerimoglu, Burak Yigit, Erol Afsin.

Scene from the film Mustang

RURAL Anatolia, the present day. Five spirited teenage sisters celebrate the end of school term by going to the beach with a group of friends. They lark about in the surf, the girls on the shoulders of the boys. This innocent episode is witnessed by a ‘concerned’ local resident, and the girls’ grandmother is alerted to behaviour that is deemed compromising to moral reputation and marital prospects.

Their uncle, charged with their custody since the death of their parents, responds with violently draconian measures: bars are put on doors and windows; the girls are required to dress only in drab smock dresses; and successive husbands must be sought as the girls come of age. They are subjected to physical examinations to determine their virtue, required to spend their days in learning domestic tasks, and their futures negotiated with representatives of local families, as the house becomes increasingly akin to a factory/prison producing wives and housekeepers.

Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s stunning debut, featuring a cast of largely unknown and untrained actors, is at once a gripping drama, a beautiful and lyrical account of sisterly love, youthful rebellion, and fierce resistance, and an examination of a repressive social regime that facilitates physical and sexual enslavement of its young women. Yet it concentrates on the drama, on the girls’ resistance and spirit rather than their suppression; the film alludes to contemporary Turkey and its shift away from secularism but without being heavy-handedly political or preachy.

Justly rewarded with critical praise the world over, this is one not to be missed.

SOURCE: Contributed by Catriona Gilmour Hamilton, Thame Cinema 4 All.