September 12, 2013
Journey to the Sun
– Turkey, 1999
Yesim Ustaoglu’s Journey
to the Sun is the story of one young man’s awakening. When the film begins,
the young man, Mehmet Kara (Newroz Baz), is full of the kind of naiveté that
generally accompanies youth and immigration. He has made his way to the big
city from an area of Turkey called Tire, gotten what he considers to be a good
job, and met a young lady he loves and who loves him back. In his eyes, he has made
it. He doesn’t yet realize how much there is working against him. Ignorance is
bliss this way.
Towards the beginning of the film, Mehmet assists a man named
Berzan (Nazmi Kirik), whose life is being threatened by a group of excited
soccer fans, upset that he hasn’t taken part in their enthusiastic celebration.
He should at least be honking his horn, one tells him. Before attacking the man’s
car, someone can be heard asking if he is a Kurd, as if that would justify the
assault that is about to be attempted. Mehmet and Berzan quickly become close
friends. However, in many ways, Berzan is the opposite of Mehmet. He is informed,
much more jaded, and politically active. He is a frequent protester at a prison
where the inmates have gone on a hunger strike, and he is involved in some sort
of smuggling ring, although the purpose of the ring is left unsaid. He’s the
kind of friend everyone should have and the kind of person your mother might
warn you not to get involved with.
The film does an exceptional job of showing viewers the
conditions that many people in modern Turkey deal with on a daily basis - from the
police asking for identification papers at every turn to cramped, uncomfortable
living quarters that are packed with five or six people at a time. We also see
the kinds of jobs that many migrant workers have to resort to just to eke out a
living. Berzan, for example, operates a small portable stand selling audio cassettes,
and his is just one of the many makeshift stands wheeled out in public every
day.
The film also includes eye-opening incidents of classism, as well as realistic clashes between traditionalism and modernism. In one
scene, we see older women wearing what would be considered traditional outfits
on the same bus as two younger women who represent varying degrees of
modernity. One wears silk stalkings in public and is adamant that she can,
while the other would only wear them at home and would only put them on when
her boyfriend is not watching.
Early in the film, Mehmet is falsely accused of being a
terrorist, and the police officers that question him do quite a number on him.
It is not the only sign of human rights abuses in the film. Later, upon his
release, Mehmet is publicly stigmatized in a way reminiscent of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and the majority of those
that know him quickly cast him aside. As we see throughout the film, he is not
the only one that this has happened to, and each X we see painted on a doorway is a calling card, a sign that
someone was neither welcome nor safe. Just what happened to them is one of the
film’s many mysteries.
The film was clearly shot without a Hollywood-style
production crew, and many scenes are rather dark and grainy. This may frustrate
some viewers, but to me, it gave the film a very realistic feel, as if it were
a documentary. At times, Ustaoglu even employs black-and-white images of
protests and carnage that have the authenticity of actual newsreel footage. However,
little we see in these moments matches the visuals in the latter half of the
film, for in this part of the film, Mehmet sets out of a journey to return his
friend to a home that no longer exists. In fact, it more closely resembles a
journey into hell than the joyful homecoming of a returning son and loved one.
It has to be seen to be believed.
I’ve seen movies like Journey
to the Sun before, yet I’ve rarely seen one that offers up so bleak a
picture as this one does. However, despite the film’s increasingly hopeless
tone, it remains a very involving film. I cared about these characters, and I
found myself hoping that life would somehow turn around for them. Looking at
the film now, in light of the recent protests and crackdown that took place in
Turkey, I wonder if anything has really changed there. Just how many protesters
have woken up to find their doors marked with a scarlet X? (on DVD)
4 stars
*Journey to the Sun
is in Turkish, Kurdish, and Dutch with English subtitles.
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