Synopsis:
Several Turkish prisoners return home to their families for a week’s leave, and must deal with the consequences of their long absence.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Homecoming
• Infidelity
• Middle East
• Prisoners

Response to Peary’s Review:
As Peary notes, this award-winning Turkish film is “fascinating, brutal, [and] depressing” — a truly provocative and disturbing viewing experience. He writes that the “main story is about a man who finds that his family has banished him because he was responsible for his brother-in-law’s death,” and “now he suffers guilt, humiliation, and fear of reprisal from his in-laws.” Another story involves a “prisoner [who] discovers that his unfaithful wife has been chained in a cell for eight months; forbidden to speak, even to her young son, or to be touched; given only bread and water for sustenance; denied an opportunity to bathe; [and] left to wallow in her own filth;” his goal is to attempt “to take her home to her brother, but they must cross five miles of frozen terrain.”

The central premise of the film — that prisoners “on leave” must eventually return to captivity — is unusual, and infuses the film with a sense of bitter fatality. Ironically, life is not a whole lot better on the outside than in prison, and the line between the two is shakily drawn. Indeed, Peary posits that director Yilmaz Guney (a former prisoner himself) is attempting to show how “in Turkey, hostility and repression exist on every level of society: guards over prisoners, men over women, the heads of families over their relatives, the people themselves over those they consider ‘sinners’.”

This realistic film is hard to watch — not least “because it jumps back and forth in time and between the various stories and because all the men have mustaches and resemble each other” (!):

.. but it’s not easily forgotten.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• An uncompromising look at the brutality of life in Turkey
  
  
• Fine cinematography
  

Must See?
Yes. This is harsh but must-see viewing.

Categories

• Foreign Gem

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Original Review