Sarajevo-Skopje-Belgrade

Tesko Je Biti Fin

The film set the tone for my foray into ex-Yugoslav cinema, with its concerns about genealogies, cars and the nouveau riches. Beautiful nostalgic views of Sarajevo with its impossible minarets, and the melodrama of one family that verges on tragedy but swerves from it the last minute. (Spoiler coming!) The chance discovery of the man's impotence suggests dark thoughts about the baby's father, especially when the woman in Bosnian (maybe especially for a Turkish audience who's been fed news about 'war bastards') My favourite scene is when, as their taxi driver, he speaks to the Japanese war tourists after they have just been assaulted by a gun man whether they want to continue the excursion or go back to the hotel with the dexterity of a carpet seller in Sultanahmet 'Go home? Go go?'. And of course the endless discussions they have abıut the nes taxi-car he buys. There are also references to the Europe-wide ex-Yugoslav mafia that now organizes heists as far as Hamburg.

Senki (Shadows)- Manchevski

A disappointment after his Before the Rain, I have not been able to see Dust yet, I hear it's racist and antiTurk, sounds rather interesting! Senki is about ghosts that haunt a Macedonian doctor, it turns out they are the souls of the people whose bones they have been using as teaching material. There is an abandoned house. There is a tomato grove. The sign of the newer times is the scene when he enters a fist fight with his mother for the jeep, she cries 'I won't let you take my jeep', which he does of course, with force. Most significant scene of the film. I am also intrigued by one of the ghosts whose national affiliations were translated as 'Aegean' in the Turkish subtitles. She did look kinda Greek.

Klopka (The Trap)
Set in Belgrade about a middleclass couple whose son is diagnosed with a heart disease and who can be operated on only in Germany, for which they need 26000 euros. A mafia guy tries to exploit this by offering the father money for shooting dead some mafia head. Class crops up everywhere in the film nicely, the mother's students using their mobiles in class, trying to buy their grades, and the father's car stopped and cleaned by street children. Of course there is a lot of emphasis on the jeep once again. And the fragility of family ties.

and two related films on the side

Fraulein
about a totally unbelievable Bosnian character who is supposed to be very ill and working somewhere in Switzerland at a restaurant run by Serbs. The owner of the restaurant recaptures her love for life with the help of the sick Bosnian girl, who, having brought the woman back to life, disappears. There are scenes where we are supposed to ooh and aaah about how they are like a mother and daughter who are reunited.

The Banishment
much better Russian film Tarkovski style opening with trees and long landscapes and big sheep herds walking in the distance. You just have to take it all in as the background for the drama that unfolds, again about genealogy and husbands who learn they've been fathering children not their own- possibly. An abandoned house once again finds its inhabitants, however, the man has been away too long working and the family he comes back to is different. Half way through the film bitter truths are revealed to the audience in flashbacks. I later learnt that the script is based on a William Saroyan story, hats off! Will go see his exhibition in Tophane ASAP.

Janus-faced

Two nights before Eid al Adha, the day of Abraham's sacrifice, I find myself tired, a heap on the bed, and all I can do - I decide - is to listen to something interesting (even watching seems too much of an effort) and so I check out Radio 4's sample of afternoon plays and lo and behold, there is the story of how Richard Burton entered Mecca, and the Kabaa itself, disguised as an Afghan (echoes of course with Lawrence and the German guy feigning to visit Aaron's tomb when in fact he's searching for Petra) So along with the images and stories and news from Mecca coming from friends and family visiting Mecca at the moment for Hajj, I also get Joseph Fiennes' droning voice telling me why he's getting circumcized, then challenging the Arabs to quote as long a passage from the Koran and then as he enters the Kabaa, his sense of 'pure personal success'.

Who is Elif Batuman?

(from her blog)

Who is that bearded man?

In my capacity as a relatively obscure writer, people come to me with all kinds of questions. “Will I enjoy Infinite Jest?” they ask me. Or: “Does Turkey belong in the EU?” Sometimes, they send me pictures of bearded men to identify—for example, this one, from the cover of a Korean book about IQ.

for more obscure stuff and the origins of the garden gnome see
http://www.elifbatuman.net/

Mirror Image

I'm wearing a corduroy jacket and looking down into the depths of the abyss, only, this time, there is no river but a flow of cars. I am a non-participant observer who lifts her eyebrows when she hears one of the participants speak with a perfect British accent. Still I remain aloof. I take out my Iris Murdoch and read it like my life depended on it. At the end I network. A shy looking young woman speaks Russian at me.

Urfa and Its Saints

remember, remember
the 21st of December