Director Emil Alper’s Salvation (Kurtuluş) demonstrates the way religion can become a weapon that feeds anger and violence. The film won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Inspired by a real event, this story takes place in rural Turkey and involves a generations-long feud between clans in neighboring villages. The Hazeran clan, led by their sheikh, Ferit, lost their lands long ago to the richer Bezaris. But when terrorists appeared, the Bezaris left and the Hazerans have been fighting to protect the land and have been farming it. They feel that they deserve to have the land. But now the Bezaris are beginning to return and reclaim what is theirs.
The Hazeran sheikh, Ferit, cautions against fighting. His older brother Mesut, begins to have dreams that grow from resentment and paranoia. Soon he has stirred up the community’s anger, displacing Ferit as leader. He portrays his visions as from God, making it seem that to act now is what God demands. For Mesut, the Hazerans’ salvation can only come with the annihilation of the Bezaris. Certainly the abuse of religion in such ways is not limited to this region. Nor is Islam the only religion that can be coopted by those seeking power. It is worth considering how we see the same ideas being advanced in many places—even close to home.
I suppose if there were an award for Best Title, many would want to give it to Bucking Fastard, directed by Werner Herzog. It is the story two sisters (played by Kate and Rooney Mara) who are totally in sync. They speak simultaneously (even with the same verbal slips [hence the title]). They think the same things. They move in unison. They fall in love with the same man, Gareth Mulroney (Orlando Bloom). When Mulroney marries another, the sisters go off the deep end, acting with violence and general strangeness.
They move to the city, where a social workers (Domhnall Gleason) helps them cope with life. Then they move to the country with their aunt. They discover caves and hear stories about a tunnel that goes to the Orkney Islands, which they imagine as a place where they would be free to love. They begin tunneling through the mountain to get there. The Mara sisters are amazing in their synchronized performances. However, the gimmick become a bit tedious at times, and the plot only exists to forward the gimmick, not the other way around.
One in a Million, directed by Itab Azzam and Jack Macinnes, won the Audience Award and Director Award for World Cinema at Sundance this year. It follows young Syrian refugee Israa (age 11 at the beginning) and her family over a ten-year period, from a camp in Turkey to the long journey through various countries, until they find their new home in Germany. It also chronicles her return to Syria after the fall of the Bashir government.
In some ways this is as much a coming-of-age story as it is about the life of refugees. We see Israa and her family adapt (or not) to the new culture. There are more struggles doing this for Israa’s parents (especially her father) than for Israa. Some of the conflict in Israa’s new life might be considered normal adolescence, but the cross-cultural issues add a dimension. By the end, she has a foot in two worlds. Not just Germany and Syria, but as a daughter and as an adult.
