Girls’ fight to be heard a powerful story
Mustang (out of 4) Starring Gunes Sensoy, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Elit Iscan, Tugba Sunguroglu, Ilayda Akdogan. Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven. 98 minutes. Opening Friday at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. PG Turkish-French director Deniz Gamze Ergüven makes a stunning debut with a powerful statement about female repression that goes straight for the heart in her Oscarnominated drama about five orphaned sisters whose youthful exuberance comes up against tradition in a Turkish coastal village.
An innocent and fully clothed endof-school frolic in the sea with their male classmates brings swift retribution when a nosy neighbour reminds the conservative family raising Lala (Günes Sensoy) and her older siblings Sonay (Ilayda Akdogan), Selma (Tugba Sunguroglu), Ece (Elit Iscan) and Nur (Doga Zeynep Doguslu) that this “obscene behaviour” shouldn’t be tolerated.
Their grandmother (Nihal G. Koldas) is shamed for falling short in her moral duties while the girls’ ultraconservative uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) has a plan to curb this unacceptable behaviour for good. Soon school, computers, phones, jeans and fun are out and the house is turned into a fortress “wife factory,” while the teens are groomed for wifely duties as arranged marriages sound the knell for freedom.
The movie occasionally strays into too-literal interpretations of their struggle, the girls become prisoners as the patriarchy clamps down, hastily added iron bars keeping them inside.
The sisters find ways to rebel, not always with success, but certainly with vigour.
As the girls fight to have their voices heard, Ergüven and co-writer Alice Winocour ensure harshness is tempered with warm, sometimes humorous domestic scenes and the arrival of an unlikely ally.
Amid tragedy and exploitation, Mustang is a powerfully memorable film with touchingly naturalistic and unaffected performances from the female cast whose strength and longlimbed natural beauty echo the untamed image of the film’s title.