In the last years, Turkey, especially its political elite, has been making quite a few headlines with its disregard for freedom of speech and its role within the refugee crisis of 2015. For many people, these developments have been the cause of great concern as to the question of how the country will be defined in the near future. For those working in the field of culture, like filmmaker Azra Deniz Okyay, this question has been at the center of their work and is tackled in recent movies, such as her feature film debut “Ghosts” or “Hayaletler”, which is its original title. Through the perspectives of four characters, the striking story takes a closer look at the daily life in Istanbul, thus shedding light on various political and social aspects of modern-day Turkey.
“Ghosts” is streaming at Thessaloniki International Film Festival
The 26th of November 2020 is a day defined by riots and demonstrations, following a power outage which has been lasting for quite some time. However, Didem (Dilayda Güneş) has more pressing troubles after she has been fired from her job at a hotel and with an important dance battle in the evening coming up, an event she and her friends have been practicing for, for quite some time. She eventually agrees to help her neighbor, a woman named Iffet (Nalan Kuruçim), who has to do some rather shady business in order to pay the protection money for her son who is imprisoned. Even though Iffet assumes the deal will profit a man in her neighborhood, it is actually one orchestrated by a known smuggler (Emrah Özdemir), whose reputation has been tarnished by his exploitation of Syrian refugees, who work for him, as well as his involvement in re-shaping the neighborhood, leading to many houses being demolished and being replaced by more modern buildings.
At the same time, Ela (Beril Kayar), an artist and activist, tries her best to organize an exhibition of her work, a task made quite difficult due to the riots and the police presence all around the district where she lives. Over the course of 24 hours, the lives of these four characters intersect at various points and as the power outage continues, their different endeavors are influenced by the atmosphere of growing aggression and unrest in the city.
Within its running time of around 90 minutes, “Ghosts” manages to tackle quite a few controversial topics within Turkish politics and society, ranging from the status of women, political activism and gentrification. The power outage which establishes the starting point for the character's struggles as well as the omnipresent riots and police presence seems to point at a grim looking future for the country, a quite literal descent into darkness, which has already been pointed out by some reviewers of “Ghosts”. Even though Okyay's script reflects a somewhat ambivalent stance towards this pessimist view at times, the aforementioned presence of the authorities and the underlying or quite obvious aggression, especially towards characters like Didem, paint a seriously disturbing image of a society whose nerves are quite raw and has almost reached a breaking point.
Repeatedly the viewer sees the phrase of the “young Turkey”, a changed country ready to evolve and turn its back to the past. However, Okyay's views as presented in her work seems quite skeptical as the “new face” of Turkey resembles the old or present landscape of the country, albeit more authoritarian and suppressive. On several occasions, Bariş Özbiçer‘s captures the rows of office building and apartment blocks depicting this “new face”, resulting in a radical change of the urban sphere and the emotions of aggression or frustration as shown by the people Okyay's character meet. While the image of this new Turkey might be one of unity and conformity, the foundation seems to be rotten and ramshackle at best.
Aesthetically, Okyay and Özbiçer follow a semi-documentary approach, which fittingly underlines the themes of the story and the struggles of each character. Additionally, the cast of “Ghosts” is quite exceptional, with Nalan Kuruçim and Dilayda Güneş giving the most memorable performances as two women whose need for self-expression and security force them to take desperate measures. While Didem refuses to give up her dreams, Iffet seems to have given up hope in the state to maintain order and provide help for its citizens.
“Ghosts” is a drama which tells a story about a possible future Turkey, its society and its politics. Director Azra Deniz Okyay has managed to make an aesthetically convincing feature debut which, while its overall atmosphere seems quite bleak and pessimist at times, still maintains some shimmer of hope for the future, an aspect which is possibly the movie's biggest asset.
