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Willow Warbler follows the lens of Deniz Jamez Egouwan and goes deep into the villages of northern Turkey. It is an enchanting and heartbreaking journey. In this debut titled "Wild Horse", the female director combines youth themes, female perspectives and folklore scenery into one, and rewrites the 1999 Sofia Coppola's "Death of the Virgin". Through the collapse of a crippled family, he criticized the harm of conservative traditions to the next generation, especially women.
Feeling the repression of the patriarchal society in his hometown of Turkey, Egowan, who graduated from La Fémis, the most prestigious film school in France, chose to work with classmate Alice Winogul, for those young women who have the courage to resist the dictatorship of their parents and rush to freedom. We compose a video hymn. According to the director, "Wild Horse" is somewhat of a projection of personal experience. Back then, I was playing with the boys on the beach and was severely punished by my elders after returning home. This memory was inserted at the beginning of the movie by the director, but it was different from the girls who quarreled with their grandmothers in the story to defend their rightful rights. At that time, Egowan silently endured all the blame, and these The heart was unwilling to resent, and all erupted in "Wild Horse" a few years later.
The unhesitating youthful breath almost hits the face from the beginning of the movie. The dazzling sunlight, in the pulsation of hand-held photography, passed the faces of the middle school students in a school. This is the beginning of the summer vacation. In a simple farewell party, the heroine Lale wiped away tears and bid farewell to her favorite female teacher, who will settle in Istanbul. For Lalai and her four sisters, there is almost another world. The female teacher who is about to travel has written new contact information in Laila’s notebook. From that moment on, Istanbul has become the biggest symbol in the movie. This complex and secular city has become a symbol of freedom, disorganization and even rebellion. .
In sharp contrast to the opening of the city, the town’s simple but closed folk customs. This contradiction is concentrated in Lalai's grandmother. As a conservative traditional woman, she is very angry with her granddaughters for their often extraordinary behavior, and constantly worrying about their marriage. But more often, she showed her benevolent side. The five sisters secretly took a ride out to watch a football game. Their crazy appearance was accidentally captured by the TV broadcast, and the girls' unkind uncles, who were too harsh, were right now. Sitting in front of the TV and chatting with the neighbors over drinks. In order to avoid a bloody family battle, the grandmother summoned the women in the village and smashed the TV line with stones, so that the girls escaped the uncle's inquiries. Although the benevolence of women brings a touch of humor to the movie, it is only a moment of warmth. The only male uncle in the family who is in charge of the "power of life and death" is Sharif, and he is also the source of all "the evil of parental centralization" in the movie.
The five sisters who lost their parents were raised by Sharif, and the only topic he was interested in was how to shape them into good girls who met traditional standards and find a matching husband as soon as possible. Facing the girl's resistance, violent suppression was his only way to deal with it. Of course, the film tried to restrain the intensity of each conflict. Because a parent with personality defects is not terrible. What is terrible is that the authoritarian thinking that permeates the entire village gives a certain legitimacy to violence.
The five sisters under the lens are as soft as flower bones. "Wild Horse" uses delicate brushstrokes to explore women's desires, holding the camera close to the girls' bodies infinitely, as if whispering in the attic in the afternoon. In the lens, the flesh represents the temptation of youth, and it is full of resistance. The long hair fluttering in the wind is in stark contrast to the Muslim women who always wrap their headscarves. Perhaps to avoid certain clichés, the arranged marriages in "Wild Horse" are not heinous. The eldest sister was lucky enough to marry a man whom she had private for life, but this sweet beginning did not bring lasting good luck. On the contrary, a series of The misfortune came one after another. In dealing with this tradition, the director kept his calm, but did not hide his pessimism. In this long and complicated social ceremony, the lucky ones get true love, and vice versa blindly ruin their lives. And it is this uncertainty that highlights the helplessness of women's choices. A desperate life needs an exit, so Istanbul, a hundred kilometers away, becomes the only place of salvation in the girls' imagination. The distant metropolis represents the freedom of body and mind and the openness of thought, a utopia that seems to be within reach, but far away.
The many misfortunes that fell on the sisters were revealed to the audience through Lalai's observations. As the youngest of the five sisters, the director gave him the most rebellious character and the richest growth possibilities. After witnessing the tragedy of the second and third sisters, the underage girl finally decided not to be a prisoner in a cage. Either surrender with a stance of obedience, or fight with a decisive attitude, even if the end result is the destruction of jade and stone. The process of Lalai's self-awakening is an intermediary between the movie's audience and the Turkish real world. Through her eyes, we can observe the conservative culture of a foreign country and place all our hopes on the final resistance of the protagonist. Lalai's resistance finally appeared in the form of escaping from the shackles, and the foreshadowing at the beginning of the film was appropriately echoed at the end. After the endless tragedy, the whole movie turned to a moment of light.
However, can the aspiring Istanbul bring all freedom? If the "Wild Horse" is a little scribbled, it is definitely not because of the ending itself. After all, a little girl who leaves home alone cannot make a superhero-like feat. Going to big cities hundreds of kilometers away with the help of friends is already the limit of his ability. From this perspective, the ending is logical. A bigger problem may lie in the director’s creative presupposition. Igowan, who has already westernized his thinking, uses "freedom" as the only criterion to analyze the agitation of rural girls’ youthful agitation. Among them, naturally ignores the deeper society. The excavation of the background makes many characters in the film superficial. The girl who pursues personal happiness and the heinous old concept are portrayed as two polarities of duality, and the camera unobtrusively shifts between two styles of tenderness and irritability. This slightly crude division is a typical Western perspective. The rebels have natural legitimacy, and she is destined to be praised and sung. Of course, as a highly completed debut, "Wild Horse" is blameless at all levels of technology and narrative. It has a fairly smooth plot, intertwined with compassion and hope, and the radiance of youth is on the flowers-like sisters. Shine vividly.
The Bund·Art Troupe
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