Guilt: Patriarchal oppression and the male gaze in the Turkish countryside

“Women constantly meet glances which act like mirrors, reminding them of how they look or how they should look. Behind every glance is a judgement. Sometimes the glance they meet is their own, reflected back from a real mirror.”

This is the quote that opens Ümran Safter’s latest feature, titled Guilt and screened in the Generator +13 section of this year’s Italy’s Giffoni Film Festival (20-29 July), one of the world’s largest cinematic gatherings for children and youth.

Without any ambiguity, John Berger’s quote from his 1972 book Ways of Seeing introduces the core themes of the Turkish director’s new effort.

"Guilt is a decent attempt at subverting the cliches and conventions of coming-of-age cinema – one of the film genres that, in my opinion, remains among the most difficult to work on"

The story of Guilt takes place in a small village, somewhere in the rugged landscapes of Central Anatolia. Reyhan (Mina Demirtas), a 13-year-old girl raised in a religious family, arrives there from Istanbul to spend her summer holidays, accompanied by her six-year-old brother Mehmet, and their young mother, Hatice (Berivan Edebali).

The family of three are guests of Ummu (Isil Acaray), Mehmet and Reyhan’s grandmother and Hatice’s mother-in-law. The old woman does little effort at hiding her extremely judgmental, toxic nature.

Meanwhile, Reyhan seems worried as she has just had her first period, and dreads the consequences of being unable to perform the required religious washing rites.

On the other hand, she doesn’t want to believe in such customs, which she feels are nothing but superstitions based on meaningless traditions. To complicate things further, her 17-year-old friend, a girl from the village Shukran (Ece Demirturk), fears she is pregnant and Reyhan will try to help her buy a pregnancy test out of sight of the villagers.

Even though the first two-thirds of the film proceeds at a pace that is probably a bit too slow for the young audience it aims to intercept, the director manages to set out clear conflicts and gradually makes us familiar with Reyhan’s inner turmoil and a constant feeling of discomfort towards her family.

We will find out that the girl is clearly irritated by her mother’s requests to do household chores, and does not understand why they keep on spending their holidays in such a boring, remote place.

Meanwhile, we see that Hatice trying to educate her children the old way. However, Safter hints that the woman may not be fully compelled by what society expects from her and her daughter.

She is also under great pressure owing to Ummu’s frequent remarks. We realise that Ummu – once a victim herself – gradually became an oppressor, ultimately serving as the story’s main ‘patriarch.’

“You become just like them when you arrive in the village,” Rayhan yells at Hatice, suggesting that the environment – and not just her grandmother – force her to change her attitude and, more or less consciously, enable some mechanisms of oppression. It all effectively suggests how patriarchy may take the form of a curse, passed from one generation to the next.

Commendably, Safter chooses to make a film about Turkey’s contemporary male gaze without showing too many men on screen – in truth, they are barely visible, and Rayhan’s father is absent and only sporadically mentioned.

Nevertheless, in this picture the male gaze is ubiquitous and overwhelming as it leads all the portrayed female characters to live in fear, submission and uncertainty.

Interestingly enough, Rayhan’s aunt, a young woman whose past remains mysterious but who seems to regret some of her choices, is the only person who can empathise with Rayhan’s desire for freedom. Rayhan sees herself as a young adult through her aunt, and her aunt sees herself as a young girl through Rayhan.

Over the last third of the film, the narrative pace gets faster and more involving – but this happens a bit too late. Moreover, the narrative arc's closing leaves some of the main subplots unsolved.

On a more positive note, it makes the viewers aware of how this summer has been special to Rayhan, and how it may affect her future as an adult woman.

The final image – rather banal and over-explanatory in relation to Rayhan’s previous moment of realisation – is nonetheless nifty and easy to grasp for the younger audience watching this film.

In conclusion, Guilt is a decent attempt at subverting the cliches and conventions of coming-of-age cinema – one of the film genres that, in my opinion, remains among the most difficult to work on.

We mustn't forget an obvious thing – all coming-of-age films are directed by adults, who might have forgotten what it feels like to be teenagers and may have a hard time understanding how they perceive the time and space we live in.

Luckily enough, Safter skilfully catches the young protagonists’ zeitgeist, but the picture’s lengthy approach – at times resembling that of observational documentaries, and especially in terms of editing and cinematography – along with the underwritten subplot and the predictable staging of its ending significantly limit the project’s potential.

Davide Abbatescianni is an Italian Film Critic and Journalist based in Rome

Follow him on Twitter: @dabbatescianni