sakarkral

This film reminded me of Mustang, another award-winning movie about the oppression of women and other evils of the Turkish countryside. Although the facts regarding this issue is true, cinematic representation of these facts requires literal artistry and Sibel is a total failure in this case.

Technical details aside (dialogues are badly written, acting of the amateurs are slightly better than terrible, while some villagers have strong rural accent, some others speak perfect Istanbul Turkish etc.), the movie has serious flaws from the beginning to the end. The movie aims to depict the condition of women in Turkish countryside, and problematizes the social mechanisms within. However, these social mechanisms are mainly women-borne, so as to say that "a woman is a wolf to other women."

This is the exact point this movie totally fails. Their "goal" for shooting this movie appears to be singling out their "fellows" in these rural communities (those who have potential to be bourgeois, though stuck in the countryside) and motivate them to fight back. Against whom? Against the oppressive women around them, instead of building a feminist consciousness and solidarity altogether.

Apparently this is all because the directors' strong bourgeois codes do not let them get into (and grasp the essence of) the real rural life, so they had no chance but to represent what they already had on their minds about it.

This movie is the most powerful defense for children's right I have ever seen. One choice of the director is the ultimate signifier of the importance given as such: She plays the advocate role herself. And she does it well: She has no mercy for human rights violation. Although she knows and thoroughly demonstrates that the main reason for children's suffering is poverty, when it comes to parents' responsibility to their children parental poverty is not extenuating circumstances.

However - and rightfully for sure - her strongest accusation is against to the modern concept of citizenship in the globalized world of 21st century. The movie clearly exhibits that if the pieces of paper that are called "passport" or "ID" are not "valuable" enough (for whatever "valuable" means), people are not considered as respectful HUMAN BEINGS anymore. They are bought, they are sold, they are used, they are "transferred" etc... They are COMMODITIES. This is the long-celebrated "globalization" process.

What if Haneke's "The Seventh Continent" was shot by Lanthimos? Pity!

Haneke makes very good movies. Their only problem is they are not movies. Instead, they are sociological articles written by moving images. Whether intentionally or not, they fail to trigger emotions in the viewers. They just tell what they want to tell. Greek Weird Wave, on the other hand, catches the viewer with its absurdity and "injects" its position. And this is what I call "art."

Pity is a must-see about the emptiness of the middle class life flavored with a very well-tuned humor.