Kurdish People in New Turkish Cinema - Essay Example

? Kurdish People Discuss the representation of Kurdish people in New Turkish Cinema. Refer to I saw the Sun (2009, Mahsun Kirmizigul) and The Breath (2009, Levent Semerci) in the answer Kurdish people are minority of people who live in Turkey, and their identity is quite broad. They are an Iranian people from Middle East; they speak Kurdish language and are found in the western part of Turkey. They have a history of moving, and this is depicted in their in the plight of getting identification. The movies technique is unique in sound and the actors used. The neo-realistic style is appropriate because the plight of Kurds is real. The films are good in terms of Kurdish culture, landscape and the vision of the Kurds. The movies praise the Kurd’s lifestyle, as it is by a Kurdish for Kurdish people (Julie, 380). They are written and spoken in Kurdish language, thus unique as few films take Kurds as a subject matter and use the language too. International attention has also been drawn in the movies. The movies represent all aspects of Kurdish; the climate, the landscape, dressing code, behaviors, and culture in their land. The Kurds have used plays, music and films in the recent past to express themselves. The changing status of women representation in Turkey society, the effect of internal and external people and the East-West tug of war on Turkey through; faith, economics, politics, and so forth. The government has also allowed the teaching of Kurdish language in private universities. National cinema and Turkish filmmaking has received little English language attention as language equals to identity, and it is the root of any culture. Plays and art have been made to make the culture of Kurdish identified. Turkish cinema has gone under some renascence of late which gives various identities of a Turkish cinema. In Turkey, the language is mainly the contentious feature of Kurdish films (Pratt, 176). Kurdish directors have made Kurdish themed films yet it is not the official language in Turkey. In Turkey the films have shown that they can be formed and awarded. The movies “I saw the sun” and “The Breath” begins at the beginning just like many other movies. In the beginning where Muslim women could not be actors, non-Muslims minorities assumed the female role. Attention is given to women representation in film production. Directors and crew members are from Kurds who are minority and do not normally receive acknowledgement, making them to hide or down play their origins yet they have played a large role in the cinema (Mackenzie, 119). The movies appeal against discrimination and prejudice. There can be various reasons for the rise in Kurdish Cinema. International success can be classified as one of them, as they represent the lives of Kurdish people. It motivates young Kurdish people to engage in cinema and has turned into a way of self-description and liberation. This has made many young people to get film education at the university. The existence of Kurdish themed cinema started way back in 1960’s in Turkey. They portrayed eastern characters but it was only late in 2007 that it was portrayed as “Kurdish cinema”. This motivated a historical evaluation of cinematic production in Turkey by the definition of Kurdish cinema. The rise of Kurdish film directors and film critics has made the distinction between Turkish cinema and Kurdish cinema (Stanley, 276). Social issues in Turkish cinema have become a source of repression and difficult to solve. There is the issue of self-cencership and government censorship. The funding is also from European sources rather from the Turkish. The urbanization aspect has also threatened Kurdish culture as the use of mother tongue is a human rights violation thus; music, fairytales, lullabies and films from the villages are transferred from the heritage to new generations. The situation has changed considerably as there are Kurdish-language books, music, and some theatre troupe’s stage productions in Kurdish too. The films show how the Kurdish people are treated by the Turkish government and the reason for disappearances of some of them (Hamid, 256). They reveal the harsh and cruel treatment they face in Turkey. The movies try to show how the militants were crushed. The Kurdish militants have lived in a time of tragedy and ignoring this is a mistake. The movies are quite political as they show how the Kurdish is organized in their land. They show the terrorist group and try to evaluate their existence. The movies show the discrimination the Kurds have gone through over the years (Steingrover, 38). The constant fighting and despising of one another of the Turkish and Kurdish brothers are living in, Turkey killing one another after living together for so many years. The reality of the war is depicted in the movies. The writers of the movies being Kurdish and knowing the culture plus the trials and tribulations they have passed through, gives a first hand experience of a true life situation of Kurds. They show the dislocation of people forced into obscurity to be ground in the cogwheels of large cities, as a result of relocation policy and also shed light on the troubled life they pass. They show Kurdish family lives and display the characters too (Deanne, 123). Despite, the poverty levels and lack of education the films show the family devotion, respect for one another, peaceful and joyful nature of the people. This is disrupted and transformed every now and then by the constant wars and raids by the government. The people are conservatives; they try to keep their culture and show why people have to migrate to new places making refugees and illegal immigrants a menace to tackle. The army and the terrorists fight and yet the army should not be on the mountains. The army is also there because the imperialist founded terrorist on the mountain (Lippard, 276). The standard of Turkish films can parallel Hollywood, but this can only be measured through alternative types of filmmaking. The movies have represented the marginalized members of Turkish community, the women in Turkish society, and the Turkish national identity. Moreover, it has shown the balancing act it does in the country of Turkish society between the European and Asians. The movies have drawn praise from both the army and pacifists. The films have; good film aesthetics, well thought narrative, and the set also in Turkey. Use of Kurdish oral culture is significant as the sounds and soundtracks are a significant aspect of Turkish Cinema. The soundtrack of background noise of military aircraft and Kurdish music makes it even more interesting (NY, 367). The sound of the bombs and military aircraft is always heard and they have become part of Kurds lifestyle, implication being the “unnatural” sounds becoming part of natural sound in Kurds environment. The emphasis of filmic qualities of the camera work and use of sound reflects the changes in Turkish society and the development of Kurdish cinema. Furthermore, Kurdish films have participated in many of the countries festivals. They use landscape in the film is quite significant as it represents Kurdistan and Kurdish life. The use of mountains is quite a central symbol for the Kurds. The image of Kurds to some extent can be equated to mountains and snow. The wars between the militants and the government forces are also shown along the snowy mountains. The Kurds are restricted in the cruel environment. The movies show how they are accustomed to the environment surrounding them. They survive with the cold situations and in cases where one is sick he is made to drink snow as the only available drink in the mountains (Komori, 167). The houses are traditional and built with rocks and coated with mud, no traditional roofs instead they are even and completed of mud. Turkish production and international distribution do not have a wide distribution yet; Turkish cinema is interesting to watch. Bibliography Codell, Julie F, Genre, gender, race, and world cinema, Wiley-Blackwell: Iowa, 2007 Ewing, Katherine Pratt, Stolen honor: stigmatizing Muslim men in Berlin, Stanford University Press: Ames, 2008 Mette Hjort, Scott Mackenzie, Cinema and Nation, Routledge: New York, 2000 Michael Dumper, Bruce E. Stanley, Cities of the Middle East and North Africa: a historical encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO: Rochester, 2007 Naficy, Hamid, An accented cinema: exilic and diasporic filmmaking, Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2001 Patricia M. Mazon, Reinhild Steingrover, Not so plain as Black and White: Afro-German culture and history, 1890-2000, Boydell & Brewer: New York, 2005 Schultz, Deanne, Filmography of world history, Greenwood Publishing Group: Goleta, 2007 Terri Ginsberg, Chris Lippard, Historical dictionary of Middle Eastern cinema, Scarecrow Press: Maryland, 2010 Times, Ny, The New York Times Film Reviews 1991-1992, Volume 1, Garland Publishing: New York, 1994 Verena Berger, Miya Komori, Polyglot Cinema: Migration and Transcultural Narration in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, LIT Verlag Munster: Munster, 2011 Read More