10/09/2010

Seren Yüce’s slow-paced, feature debut Majority is a critique of Turkey’s misogynistic culture, in which the victim of social oppression is a young man who doesn’t have the courage to get out from under his father’s thumb and be with the woman he loves (Esme Madra).

Mertkan (Bartu Küçükça layan, in his film debut) is a non-ambitious slacker in his early 20s who has little desire to do anything but hang out with his friends, much less work for his father’s construction company. The only person who sparks life in him is Gül (Madra), a Kurdish student who has run away from her family to attend university in Istanbul. Their relationship, however, is immediately opposed by Mertkan’s father Kemal (Settar Tanrıöen).

The slow pace that Yüce sets in the film further conveys the endlessly oppressive setting. The story’s men are either overbearing, like Kemal, or submissive. Moreover, they control everything in the macho society but are emotionally inept for the fact that they never really have to interact with the other half of the population.

At the Q&A following the film’s official Venice Days screening, the director said the story, which he also wrote, “comes from myself and my neighbourhood and the friends I remember from when I was [the characters’] age. Unfortunately, not much has changed, the cycle continues today.”

Küçükçalayan, a theatre actor who had to tone down his performance for first film role, and Madra spoke of the nurturing, friendly atmosphere created on set by Yüce, who held few rehearsals and asked only of his actors that they be “real.” For his part, Tanrıöen admitted that playing Kemal was easy. “There are so many men like him in Turkey that it was easy for me to recognize the character and portray him,” said the veteran actor of his standout performance. Majority was produced for approximately €250,000 by Turkish company Yeni Sinemacilar and will be released domestically at the end of October by Özen Film. International sales are handled by The Match Factory.