{"id":1182,"date":"2019-10-18T00:52:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T22:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dfkfilms.com\/de\/?page_id=1182"},"modified":"2020-01-06T17:28:16","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T16:28:16","slug":"jane-mills-introduces-yol-the-full-version-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.dfkfilms.com\/de\/filme\/yol-the-full-version-2022\/jane-mills-introduces-yol-the-full-version-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Mills introduces YOL \u2013 The Full Version (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u015eerif Goren, Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney (by proxy)<\/h3>\n

Transcripts of the introduction at Cinema Reborn 2019 which took place at The Ritz Cinema in Randwick from 2-6 May.<\/h6>\n
\n
Acknowledgment of country: the Bidjigal people. It is particularly appropriate to acknowledge Australia\u2019s indigenous people because it connects to the film we\u2019re about to see that acknowledges Turkey\u2019s indigenous Kurdish people.<\/h6>\n

I first saw Yol <\/em>in 1982, in London\u2019s Lumi\u00e8re Cinema (now a fitness gym), tucked behind Trafalgar Square in St Martin\u2019s Lane. From the moustaches and headscarves of the most of the audience, I assumed most of the audience was Turkish. But not so. At one point in the film, the audience suddenly erupted \u2013 literally exploded \u2013 into cheers, claps, shouts and tears. It was the point when the word \u201cK\u00fcrdistan\u201d appeared on the screen. Their joy made me realize that the audience was, of course, Kurdish. This was the first time they had ever seen a film openly depicting their own people, language, and homeland. It remains the single most moving cinematic experience I\u2019ve ever had. And at that moment, I knew my next film had to be about Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney. [1]<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"Y\u0131lmaz<\/a>

Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney 1982 Cannes Award Ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n

Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney<\/h3>\n

G\u00fcney was described by the critic J. Hoberman as \u201csomething like a combination of Clint Eastwood, James Dean, and Che Guevara.\u201d [2] A big claim but, if anything, a gross understatement. G\u00fcney was a hugely <\/em>popular film star of action, adventure and western knockoffs before he became Turkey\u2019s politically committed cinematic voice of protest.<\/p>\n

G\u00fcney was many things: megastar, poet, novelist, award-winning director, Marxist, militant propagandist, revolutionary democrat, dangerous communist, chardonnay socialist, political prisoner, bandit, saint, exile, traitor \u2013 and murderer: G\u00fcney was, or was accused of, all these.<\/p>\n

Despite spending a total of twelve years in prison, two in military service, two in enforced internal exile and three years of self-imposed exile in France, he had a prolific film career. He acted in 111 films, wrote and directed twenty films \u2013 three of which he made from jail \u2013 by proxy. Filmmaking from jail by proxy? In 1974 Y\u0131lmaz was convicted of murdering a judge and sentenced to 19 years imprisonment. But prison didn\u2019t stop him from making films. As a filmmaker, he was undoubtedly unique.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"YOL<\/a>

YOL \u2013 The Full Version, Cannes Classics 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

Yol\u2013 The Full Version<\/h3>\n

\u015eerif Goren and Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney (by proxy), 2017<\/h3>\n

First, a little about the film we\u2019re about to see. It follows 6 prisoners who have been granted a week\u2019s parole to travel back to their homes. All the prisoners experience sadness, despair and oppression on their journey. The oppression often comes from those who are themselves oppressed by the military regime, feudal traditions, contemporary capitalism, nationalism, and by religious intolerance.<\/p>\n

Yol <\/em>presents Turkey as one large prison in which the people are oppressed by political tyranny, the ever-present military and by superstition, bigotry, religion and patriarchy. The women, especially, are trapped by traditional values and codes of masculine \u2018honor\u2019 that reduce them to possessions as the men pursue futile vendettas and revenge killings.<\/p>\n

G\u00fcney\u2019s conviction of the futility of individual action and the need for solidarity and unity in collective action is nowhere more strongly represented than in the story-line of \u00d6mer (Necmettin \u00c7obano\u011flu). He is one of three Kurdish characters with whom many think G\u00fcney closely identified. To the soundtrack of a haunting Kurdish song, \u00d6mer leaves his family and his village to head across the border to join his fellow Kurds where he will fight for Kurdish liberation. Like G\u00fcney, \u00d6mer finds freedom by choosing to fight rather than submit to military or feudal law.<\/p>\n

\u015eerif G\u00f6ren who filmed on location according to the detailed instruction G\u00fcney gave him in prison brings his own cinematic skills to the film. [3] He captures a people in brutally beautiful landscapes caught between the destructive forces of modernization and feudalism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meeting Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney<\/h3>\n

For my film, I interviewed Y\u0131lmaz in Paris in 1984. I\u2019d heard he was ill but I was unprepared for the desperately sick man I met. My interview took all day because every 45 minutes or so he would have to lie down to gather his strength. But he insisted on going on to the end of my many questions. 3 weeks later, Y\u0131lmaz died of cancer.<\/p>\n

What follows are some of my questions and G\u00fcney\u2019s answers at this interview.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. How did you make film from prison?<\/h6>\n

I must say this is not true. In prison, I only created the conditions for making it. The success of all my films is the success of my friends who worked on them. These friends acknowledge my part in this success, as I acknowledge theirs.<\/p>\n

2. How did censorship affect you?<\/h6>\n

Every one of my films has been censored or banned. To make films about the reality of Turkish life, I had to take precautions against this monster. So, I based my message on a particular language that was formed between me and the people. I developed a sort of Aesopian language. [4] It enabled me to speak to the masses.<\/p>\n

This raises the fascinating issue of whether censorship can be productive and contribute to the creative process.<\/p>\n

3. Why do you stress Kurdish oppression in Yol?<\/em><\/h6>\n

There are 12 million Kurds in Turkey without democratic rights. Can you conceive of a people who can\u2019t sing their songs in their own language? Who are denied the right to say \u201cwe exist; we are Kurdish\u201d? In Yol<\/em>, I was able to bring this issue to millions of people who were unaware of it. This was my democratic duty.<\/p>\n

4. Under prison conditions, how did you write the script and instruct \u015eerif G\u00f6ren to direct Yol <\/em>on location?<\/h6>\n

There is no need for modesty. I am Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney. When I plant my feet on Turkish soil, I achieve a lot. I organized every prison I went to. I organized the prisoners as well as the guards. I prepared the most detailed plans to achieve my films. I can\u2019t go into how I did this, as it would bring trouble to those who were involved.<\/p>\n

5. Why did you flee from prison and from Turkey?<\/h6>\n

Yol <\/em>came into being as a means of struggle. It was getting impossible for me to make films from prison. The longer I was inside, my relationship with the Turkish people got weaker. Oppression \u2013 torture, censorship \u2013 was increasing. On top of this, I was being tried for more crimes \u2013 for my writings. To remain in prison under these conditions meant giving up. I could no longer stay in Turkey. There were only two possibilities: to fight or to give up. I chose to fight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Things to look out for while watching this film<\/h3>\n
    \n
  • G\u00fcney\u2019s voice can be heard several times \u2013 he dubbed the voice of the dentist, the man in bus depot who asks for a cigarette and the prison loud speakers.<\/li>\n
  • Shots of \u0130mral\u0131 prison \u2013 this is where Y\u0131lmaz was himself imprisoned.<\/li>\n
  • The scene in the toilet on a train \u2013 this is an example of G\u00fcney\u2019s \u2018Aesopian language.\u2019 Politicized Turks in the audience would know that this scene is said to have actually happened to the famous Communist poet, Nazim Hikmet, when he met his wife while on parole from prison. But that time, in an era before the military juntas dehumanized the Turkish people, the other passengers on the train helped the dissident and his wife find a space to be together.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Conclusion<\/h3>\n

    Tonight\u2019s film is not quite the film that won first prize at Cannes. This restored \u201cfull version\u201d is the cut that Y\u0131lmaz signed off on before he was required to make some quite cuts to satisfy the conditions stipulated by the Cannes Festival. However, thanks to the persistence of the Swiss producer, Donat Keusch, the detailed notes of the Swiss editor Elizabeth Waelchli [5] and to digital restoration technology, it is the film that G\u00fcney wanted us to see.<\/p>\n

    Jane Mills <\/strong>
    \nUNSW. May 2019<\/p>\n

    _______________<\/p>\n

    [1] Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney: His Life, His Films <\/em>(Jane Mills, 1987) made for Try Again Ltd and transmitted on Channel 4 in 1987 to introduce a short season of Y\u0131lmaz G\u00fcney\u2019s films. Narrated by Julie Christie; G\u00fcney\u2019s voice by Mark Shivas<\/p>\n

    [2] J. Hoberman, \u201cListen, Turkey\u201d, Village Voice<\/em>, November 23, 1982<\/p>\n

    [3] G\u00f6ren co-directed Umut\/Hope <\/em>(1970) with G\u00fcney and completed filming Endi\u015fe\/Anxiety <\/em>(1974) after G\u00fcney was arrested for murdering Sefa Mutlu, the public prosecutor of Yumurtal\u0131k district in Adana Province in a drunken argument.<\/p>\n

    [4] Aesopian language: a term coined by Russian satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin in Letters to Auntie <\/em>(1881-1882), to designate a \u201cfigurative language of slavery\u201d, an \u201cability to speak between the lines\u2026 at a time when literature was in a state of bondage.\u201d The practice of this elusive discourse is investigated in Lev Loseff\u2019s study, in which he defines Aesopian language as: \u201ca special literary system, one whose structure allows interaction between the author and reader at the same time that it conceals inadmissible content from the censor.\u201d (On the Beneficence of Censorship: Aesopian Language in Modern Russian Literature<\/em>, Munich: Otto Sagner, 1984)<\/p>\n

    [5] Elizabeth Waelchli was co-editor (with G\u00fcney) in 1982<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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