Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s Pandora’s Box – Pandoranin Kutusu
In my previous posting I described my disappointment at not being able to obtain tickets to see Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film “Three Monkeys” so instead, I bought tickets for another Turkish film of which I knew absolutely nothing called Pandora’s Box. Sometimes, we find a little treasure unexpectedly and what a jewel of a find this new Turkish movie is.
Yeşim Ustaoğlu, the director of Pandora’s Box describes her latest film as “a story of alienation and isolation. It is a story of individuals whose lives have been shaped by a sterile, middle-class morality, a story that many people touched by the inevitable combination of capitalism and modernity can identify with. It is a kind of human landscape, both universal and singular at the same time…”
Playing for the first time at the Toronto Film Festival, Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s Pandora’s Box is the story of three siblings who must go and search for their aging mother who has disappeared in a mountainous region in Turkey. All three siblings, Nesrin, Guzin and Mehmet live troubled lives in modern, urban Istanbul. Nesrin is married, somewhat unhappily she thinks and her teenaged son, Murat, has run away. Guzin, though successful in her work, pursue a very rotten relationship with a man and leads a very empty life. Mehmet, the brother leads a life of uselessness, unemployed and living in a dirty broken down flat and seemingly content with his existence. All three siblings upon hearing their mother has disappeared, must drive the long journey to the mountains in search of their mother. The mother is found and they take her back to Istanbul.
Well, Istanbul is very different from the mountains and it is unwise to take an old person out of their surroundings to a totally foreign environment. The family learns eventually that their mother has Alzheimer’s disease. None of the siblings are able to relate to the old woman except for the teenage son Murat. It is only Murat has a special connection with her. At her bidding, they walk together in the early morning through the city of Istanbul and she, although very old can still delight in the simple delights of the city. But she longs to go back to the mountains before she forgets the mountains. She has the instinctual knowledge that soon her life will end and she wants to go home to where she belongs. She begs Murat to “kidnap” her and take her back to her mountains.
After her own children have placed her in a home for patients with Alzheimer’s, it is Murat who will rescue her from this “prison” and take her back to her mountains. He is young enough, able to still know the meaning of freedom and the wisdom of personal choice.
Ironically, the old woman still has enough of her memory and mind to be able to teach her children one last lesson about themselves which they need to learn in order to live. It is a last gift to them from the old wisdom of the Mother.
I loved Pandora’s Box by Yeşim Ustaoğlu. She spoke after the film and answered the audience’s questions. I asked her if she had written the script and indeed she had. I also asked her how old the actress who played the mother was. Surprisingly, the actress, Tsilla Chelton, a French actress, who’s previous films include “Tatie Danielle” was 92 when filming Pandora’s Box. Yeşim Ustaoğlu stated that Ms. Chelton learned Turkish for the film. Bravo! What a brilliant performance!
In researching this film and its creator, I was to discover that Yeşim Ustaoğlu was the director of another award winning Turkish film which I loved called “Journey to the Sun”. I’ve seen the film twice and maybe one day, I’ll watch it yet again.
There is truly a renaissance in the Turkish film industry today of which Yeşim Ustaoğlu is a major player. She is a director and creator who reveals life of her country as it really is. It is the artist’s task to reveal the truth in the social, political, historical context of the time in which a work is created. And I love any work, any art, and any creation that reveals truth. It is up to the viewer to decide what they will do with that truth. Not to be missed, for sure: Pandora’s Box (Pandoranin Kutusu).
Photograph from Sadibey.com, but altered in Photoshop. Desaturated with a diffused glow by me.
If you would like to watch Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s interview on Social Realities in Turkey, or own your own copy of her other great film, “Journey to the Sun,” purchase either DVD here at Amazon.com.
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Time: December 6, 2008, 1:32 pm
[...] about Turkish films from the talented filmmakers in Istanbul and Turkey like Nuri Bilge Ceylan or Yeşim Ustaoğlu or the German Turkish Fatih Akın or the Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, but I haven’t been [...]