The first impression of watching "The Republic of Spice" stemmed from an obsession with Istanbul. When the chanting of the imams of Islam echoed in the gray sky of Istanbul, the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and the seagulls hovering over the Bosrus Strait appeared one by one, passing through the rows of houses, towers and mosques. Istanbul appeared in front of the audience, devout Muslims facing Mecca and praying, women washing laundry in patios and playful children, as well as a busy and noisy market, and a group of Turkish-speaking "Greeks" in the middle. The spice shop... looking at Istanbul in the 50's, instantly pulled me back to the days and nights where I could hardly sleep, collided with my memory for the first time, almost hit my heart - how much I miss it there what! So I think, probably this "Spice Republic" is not only about the childhood memories that are tied to the heart between life cycles, but also about the ineffable charm of Istanbul. Later, while doing my homework, I stumbled upon a doctoral dissertation on a group of Turkish Orthodox Christians living in Athens called "Rum Polites" and their relationship with the urban identity of Istanbul. A group of people and their histories are going up against the Spice Republic. Then it became clear to me that the experience of the Fanis family was not just his own memory; it turned out that it was a misunderstanding whether to call them Turks or Greeks, they had a unique and perhaps different The unrecognized title represents their past and identities that have long been sealed and denied; it turns out that the exile and tangled pains experienced by the Fanis family in "The Republic of Spice" is not about being sandwiched between the two modern nation-states of Turkey and Greece. The identity crisis between the two, but a modern tragedy about a group of people trapped in the past, unable to define ancient ethnic identities and lost memories. As a result, this childhood anecdote, which seemed to be filled with a touch of freshness and sadness, jumped into the bleak reality. In the preface to the paper, the author recounts his first encounter with this group of Rum Polites, who now live in Athens, a journey that reinforced his belief in this group as a research object. In the summer of 1998, this Turk living in Istanbul came to Rum in Athens alone In the gathering area of Polites, there was no one on the sultry street at noon. He hardly knew how to start his interview and investigation. At this time, several local young people walked up to him and talked in blunt Turkish. The author Overheard a few jokes they were telling, and a smile appeared on their lips. These young people noticed this detail and immediately asked him what he was laughing at. The author explained embarrassedly that he was from Istanbul, so he could understand Turkey. language. As soon as they heard that he was from Istanbul, these young men, who were full of hostility just now, immediately surrounded him with friendliness and enthusiasm, and asked him where he lived and where he lived, until they ensured that he was a native of Istanbul like them, and more is excited. After hearing the purpose of his trip, these young people immediately offered to help, telling him the bars that Rum Polites frequented on weekdays, and even left their contact information. They kept telling the author that all Rum Polites would be very happy. Would love to be interviewed by him because they very much want to tell their stories and let others know their history. Seeing this, I can't help but think of Fanis in "The Republic of Spice", his father and grandfather's affection for Istanbul, which is completely different from those of us who meet by chance. And I may also understand why the director has to carefully lay out many tiny details, to make a movie that most people may not fully understand its deep meaning. Like other Rum Polites, he uses film as a language to tell his story, this part of the discrete history of Rum Polites. For the audience, this story is like a delicious food with both color and aroma, which is memorable, and for the parties, every detail of this story is full of their secret memories and unspoken bitterness. It's not just the diplomat and his son that feel the director's deepest intentions, and it's not just that gloomy Istanbul night. There are many inadvertent details in the film. For example, on the night when the protagonist's family boarded the train to leave Istanbul, the portrait that flashed on the platform when the train honked its whistle was the father of modern Turkey, Kemal, and it was his secular reform that began to continue to affect Rum. Polites originally lived a prosperous and peaceful life; in the quarrel between Fanis' parents, it was mentioned that Fanis' father worked with the American ambassador, when there was a refrigerator at home, perhaps with the Turkish government restricting Rum in 1938 The range of occupations Polites engaged in and the high taxes imposed on them during World War II; and the old wounds of Grandpa Fanis in the film were left during the Greek-Turkish War. Rum Polites, who had coexisted peacefully with Muslims for the past four hundred years, was on the battlefield. He suddenly turned against his former neighbors, and since then, anti-Rum Polites sentiments in Turkey have erupted from time to time on a large scale, and an old man in the film mentioned the turmoil in the 1950s that kept him terrified. , it was one of the most destructive anti-Rum Polits riots in history... The combination of national politics and personal destiny in this film is not just a gimmick and innuendo, but a real intervention, which is more Movies like Gan Zhengzhuan are less poetic and more cruel. And without even showing it deliberately, the scars left by the times on Rum Polites' lives and hearts have become a part of them like these ordinary conversations. Whether it is Constantinople in the past or Istanbul today, its charm is irresistible. It is like a thousand and one nights where miracles are happening all the time, changing into different shapes, but appearing rough and careless. There is a strait coexisting with heaven and earth, the most magnificent relics of Orthodoxy and Islam coexist, and its modern city is like a European movie of the 80s, it is full of instability, so it casts some danger on it And the sense of mystery, like the deep eyes of the Turkish man, makes people involuntarily intoxicated. This is true even for a passerby, not to mention one who grew up in Sri Lanka, witnessed Justinian's great achievements, and watched Mehmed II's iron cavalry broke through the city gates, and the Byzantines who jointly ran the city with immigrants and merchants from all over the Galata district. Just as the quarrel between Fanis' parents at the dinner table will refer to the Byzantine emperor, this group of people who entered the 20th century are still living in the Middle Ages in terms of spiritual relics, if their national identity is based on what kind of collective In retrospect, there is no doubt that it must be the legendary city, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the center of the Orthodox world, the "city on the city" that will never fall, blessed by Jesus Christ and St. Mary. Yes, even today they are concerned about Istanbul, but there is always a Constantinople alive in their hearts. However, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the history of the city was replaced by another nation and another empire, so when Byzantium went from a lively city to a mosaic on the wall and a After an ancient discipline, they have become people without a past. Who would associate themselves with a civilization that has been extinct for 500 years? So they became the Turks, the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, who lived next to the Muslims, but kept their faith and culture. Beginning in the 1930s, they changed from Turks to Greeks, because culturally they were obviously closer to Greece, but their experiences in Greece were more poignant. Because they do not know the history of modern Greece and do not know the names of national heroes, they are considered to lack the sense of national honor and national enthusiasm, which may be a kind of injury; but for them, it is more hurtful when the surrounding Greeks bring Doubting that asking if they were baptized had a church in their hometown was more of an insult. Don't they know that the city we come from has the largest and most majestic Orthodox church in the world? Don't they know that the city that was once Constantinople has been the center of the Orthodox world since AD 330, where the seat of the universal Orthodox Patriarch is located? Don't they know that our ancestors worshipped God in Hagia Sophia with Byzantine emperors and queens for over a thousand years? The people under the throne of the world are now being tested by brothers and sisters of the same faith with the attitude of religious authority, but they have persisted in their faith in the Islamic cavalry for many years, and even were exiled from their homes in tears because of this. So far! They were forced to wear Greek identities, and Greece plundered the religious feelings and pride that should have belonged to them, Byzantine status was again denied in its own cultural tradition, and Rum Polites' identities and memories were eventually replaced and dissipated. Perhaps the director's use of language in the film may express this hint. In the 1960s, the Fanis family in Istanbul spoke Turkish, and a few years later in Greece, they spoke Greek, but when Fanis returned to Turkey and When the girls he loved in his childhood met, the director made them speak the international language, English. Why doesn't the main character speak Turkish anymore? Does this match reality? Or maybe this is not what the director considered. For him, language may symbolize that the continuation of tradition and memory is gradually fading, and he may have foreseen that as time goes by, they are a group of displaced people with vague identities, and they will eventually disappear. It will take root, they may finally admit that they will never return to the land where they have lived for thousands of years, and the city on the city in their dreams will eventually fade away, no matter how beautiful she is in the memory , and is always a foreign country. This is a memory about the director, although the main course of his life happened in Greece, but he at least had the attic full of spices, the red umbrella on the Bosrus Strait and the Turkish maiden who danced for him, however his descendants, What about the descendants of his descendants? The history of the 20th century was especially cruel to the Rum Polites. They persisted for more than 400 years for their historical memory and cultural traditions, but finally found themselves abandoned in time, the world was moving forward and they could not find anything to rely on. The roots of the past, without their hometown, although they are struggling to maintain their memories by telling and remembering, but perhaps just like in the film Fanis returned to the already crowded St. George's Cathedral again, and he helped the trembling The old man lit a candle, just as his grandfather did for him back then, but a gust of cold wind blew and the faint candle light went out. Maybe one day, the name Rum Polites will also enter the cold book, and the one who lived in Rum The real and living city on the city in Polites' heart is like a star in the sky, and it has only become a distant legend. "He didn't want to leave Istanbul at all, none of us wanted to leave, we didn't want to say anything. Istanbul is a city above the city, it's the most beautiful city in the world. Great music, beautiful sunsets, and gossip. Inseparable from Greece, the night we were told to get out, the immigration officer said in my ear, as long as I convert to Islam, we can stay and no one will hurt us again. You wonder what I've been holding on to all these years Is it a nightmare to go? That is, I didn't refuse on the spot, I hesitated for five seconds, may God forgive me, it was the most difficult five seconds in my life, the imaginary Greece is more beautiful than the reality after moving here. More beautiful to see. God forgive me." - "The Spice Republic"
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