Mustang by Deniz Gamze Ergüven
The Turkish film Mustang (2015), directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, is a drama that synthesizes very well the Muslim community and the arranged marriages without the will of the bride and bridegroom, most of the time.
The action takes place in a village in northern Turkey in early summer, when Lale and her four sisters (Selma, Ece, Sonay, and Nur) return from school playing with a group of boys. Their games, considered unhealthy by the family, cause a scandal with unexpected consequences. The three older sisters are taken to the doctor to make a virginity test, so there is no doubt about them and to remain unmarried. Step by step, their grandmother and their uncle Erol turn the house into a prison. The housework chores replace school activities and the marriages are quickly arranged. The five sisters, driven by the desire for freedom, overthrow the limits imposed by their family.
Neither the drama of the girls forced to marry by the family's decision, nor the tragedy of the suicide of one of them, or the comic moment of the little escape
to go to the soccer match, do not speed up the slow pace of the film.
The tone of the film could be serious. The described condition of the woman - which is not even the most harsh in the context of Islamic culture - would be unbearable for the girls from Europe, with arranged marriages and being “imprisoned” in the family home, but the film fades away from becoming emotional. Not even a suicide, which would have tragically concluded another film, does not end the story of the girls. As the Muslim woman resigns to fate, the camera resembles the action that ends - predictably - with the escape of the younger girls in the much more tolerant city of Istanbul.
The title of the film has one common point with action - the concept of freedom, the horse (Mustang) being a symbol of freedom.
Teacher Mirela Butoi Romania