Mustang

Films can have a mirror quality to them. They reflect and show our lives, our experiences, our systems in for what they really are. The process can allow us to truly see. The global success of Parasite can be partly attributed to the manner in which it’s clear reflection of our capitalist society resonates with many.

Yet, film can also do the opposite, and allow us to see something totally different. There is often a temptation in cinematic discourse to either other such films or attempt to derive some universal fraternity where none exists. 2015’s Mustang is both about the experience of a group of sisters growing up in a remote conservative Turkish village and about the common idea of asserting one’s agency and humanity in a world that might diminish it. It is also that rare story that is beautiful and tragic and flawed and impactful all at the same time.

Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s feature debut opens with Lale the youngest of five orphaned sisters and the films narrator at the farewell of her teacher. The teacher is moving to Istanbul and perhaps in an attempt to cheer up their sullen sister, the five decide to take the scenic route home. Detouring with some schoolboys to enjoy the benefits of living by the sea. However, upon returning home the girls are punished because their games in the sea involved contact with the other sex and has inspired rumours that would make them unsuitable to marriage. After their virginities are confirmed the lives of the sisters dramatically change. They are confined to their home and prepared to become good wives.

From then Ergüven, and co-writer Alice Winocour, slow down the story, mimicking the monotony that plagues the imprisoned. The days all blur together, the activities are the same, and the dynamism and energy that opened the story is long gone. The film takes great care to highlight the magnitude of this change; when once they ran away after stealing apples from a farm they are now surrounded by walls and fences. From swimming in their untidy school uniform, they must now dress in conservative clothing whenever outside. Yet even in this restrained climate, Ergüven ensures there is the space and time to show the individual spirit of these girls; whether it is Lale attempting to swat a fly or the two youngest pretending to be by the sea. The joy and fellowship that introduced and defined the sisters remains evident despite their less than delightful present.

In this world of limited female agency, the idea of a shared experience creates a sentiment of camaraderie between the women in the village. For one, despite being the first to punish the girls for their rumoured indiscretion, their grandmother ends up pleading their case to their uncle, the patriarch of the household. Further, after realising the sisters had snuck out to watch a female only football game, the women of the village band together to ensure their adventure remains hidden from the men. These examples serve to further highlight that the environments our characters live in are not necessarily a product of a niche cultural mores but of a society built, maintained, and benefited by men.

As time passes, the looming spectre of marriage becomes real. Their grandmother resolves to start attracting suitors and this is where the story kicks into a higher gear. Ergüven uses this ticking clock to present the central thesis statement of the film: how would you feel if your entire life would be forever lived in in what Sartre called bad faith, the sands of time slowly inching you closer to your limited agency being wiped away. The framing device of the inevitable wedding allows for a greater exploration of the subtle difference of how each girl approaches it. For once comparisons between marriage and death are apt for you truly see the full stages of grief. I’ll refrain from delving further into details lest I spoil the film at its zenith.

Mustang has its faults; at times it can appear overly unfocused and the decision to sprinkle the film with Lale’s narration while cements her as an endearing protagonist functions primarily to add unneeded exposition. The story is relatively uncomplex and by telling us what is being shown, some of the subtlety and nuance is robbed. Further, the audience leans western meaning that the film spends little time dissecting the factors create the film’s circumstances.Thus, it can come across at times as voyeuristic instead of being revelatory. There is also a suspicion that the tale, despite not being shallow in the slightest, pulls its punches. In framing its antagonist as personally being immoral, there is a fear that reducing what is in fact a tale of structural woes to a Manichean triumph over evil muddles it’s message. Despite this, showing that control under the guise of safety goes hand in hand with control for the sake of exploitation is Mustang at it’s most profound.

It is testament to the director and the talent of her actresses for we witness a great performance given by a cast of relative unknowns. From their introduction to the final scene they play their roles with depth. Further, while the film tends away from the stylish, the use of light keeps the film from delving into the dull; throughout the tale the sisters’ window is a literal and metaphorical window out of their confinement and in the brief moments of freedom the frame is positively bathed in light. Finally, the score, composed by Warren Ellis, is almost atmospheric in its minimalism yet imbues by its presence richness.

It is almost parody to describe a film as important, so I won’t, but Mustang, despite its faults, is something profoundly different. It is different in exploring how society often policies and deprives young women of agency. In this way one can talk of its political context. Turkey remains governed by a president that argued that women that weren’t mothers remained ‘incomplete’. It is thus a window to a world that might seem foreign to the many that watch it, and at times it perhaps leans too heavily in that purpose. Whether it is orientalist view of rural Turkey I am not qualified to say.

Yet it is different in one that salient way. The film was named to invoke images of wild horses, that symbol of spirit- of élan- straining against an ever-closing grip of society. In an interview with the BBC, Ergüven stated that her aim was open the doors wherever the voices of women aren’t fully heard. In focusing on the experiences of women not as they are viewed but as they live, she provides the space for a group often resigned to secondary status. To be protagonists, to be agents, to be free.