Repression saturates the screen as we witness the horrors of acceptance of an unwanted womanhood. Director Deniz Gamze Erguven gives us a filter less dissension within the world of five orphaned sisters as they struggle for sanity living in a stern Turkish village, lost in old traditions that breed a disconnect with the future beyond the horizon.
Mustang is a wondrous journey that holds a mirror to a society that was thought dead outside of our delusional Western sensibilities. Arranged marriages as an escape. Loveless pandering to the ruined elders that know nothing outside of their narrow, restrictive perception.
The connection between the sisters is palpable, engaging to the point of shared rapport. Every young actress tasked with ushering life and lust into the characters delivers with an ease rarely captured in American cinema. But foreign films deviate from the trappings and tropes and provide insight. Cinema’s definition encapsulated for our Feature Presentation.
No one stands out more than Günes Sensoy, a first time film actress who plays the youngest of the sisters. We see the world from her view, through her tears. She is a revelation, providing the soul of the film and defining resilience in the face of oppression.
The film’s rhythms are a constant clip, a heartbeat. A pounding drum drumming to the beat of a different drum. Love is the burning water running through the veins of the celluloid and burning up the screen. And the viewers eyes as they gaze upon it.
Take the time to seek this film out.