12/09/2024 - Belkıs Bayrak's feature debut as a writer-director is a solemn character study that pays powerful tribute to honouring women’s choices after trauma

For her feature debut, Turkish filmmaker Belkıs Bayrak writes and directs Gülizar [+see also:
trailer
interview: Belkıs Bayrak and Bekir Beh…
film profile], a slim film of only 84 minutes that has had its world premiere in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival and will participate in the New Dircectors section of the upcoming San Sebastián International Film Festival. Gülizar reveals itself as one of this year’s hidden gems of the festival, a ruminative but never didactic character study of a woman navigating an innately gendered world in the aftermath of an assault.

While travelling alone by bus to Kosovo for her upcoming wedding, Gülizar (Ecem Uzun) is sexually assaulted in a public bathroom. After she is made to reveal the incident, her husband-to-be, the mild-mannered yet fiercely loyal Emre (Bekir Behrem), quietly vows to find and punish the perpetrator, who likely lives nearby, but Gülizar simply wants to forget. As her wedding day looms closer, the weight of the event haunts her through everyday life, including an extreme sense of claustrophobia that manifests itself as others force her to reconfront it in their – and not her – search for answers.

Bayrak frames the progression of the film’s events through the ability of the couple, or lack thereof, to emotionally and physically connect, driven by their differing understandings of what should happen next. “I don't want to remember, Emre. I want to forget,” she pleads to her fiancé, who is well-meaning in his intentions but fails to recognise the additional pain he is unintentionally causing his loved one. In this scene, the camera slowly tracks left and right to capture only one of them in the frame at a time, emphasising the distance that their words put between them. We also witness how moments of intimate potentiality between the couple are irreparably endangered after the assault. They are framed side by side in other shots, but Gülizar pulls away at a tender touch on the hand or a bedside kiss on the neck from Emre, as corporeal reminders hide even in her beloved fiancé’s embrace.

Bayrak favours naturalistic, long-take static or near-static shots, letting the dialogue play out in a stage play-like manner. But she and cinematographer Kürşat Üresin are not afraid to get up close either, particularly while in intimate spaces such as the bed and bedroom during difficult conversations. As the baby-faced Gülizar, the gripping young Uzun holds within her face – and deeply despondent eyes – a quiet, immense pain where her carefully chosen silence speaks far louder than her words. Her initial choice to push down the trauma and reveal as little as possible shines a light on the dangers that women incidentally face, no matter what they choose to do in circumstances heavily weighted by gendered power imbalances. The way Emre acts, even through his empathetic and nonjudgemental approach, shows the behaviours that men, globally, are often taught are socially acceptable: thinking they know what is best and abiding by an impulse to be the saviour at any cost.

Gülizar is thus incentivised to work against her own desires, promised an outcome (the punishment of the perpetrator) that is socially reinforced while making her look uncooperative if she refuses (seen through Emre’s accusations that Gülizar has lied to him). But the filmmaker’s feature debut is a character study first and foremost, imbued with a powerful interrogation of gendered and politicised social roles. The other women that surround Gülizar’s life encourage her to be free and open in every way, offering her an alternative emotional outlet through sisterhood. “Sometimes, there are things you cannot even tell your husband,” says Emre’s mother Selma, played by Aslı İçözü. In a series of rewarding turns, Gülizar’s personal development becomes apparent as she ponders her case, eventually finding a way out that is true to herself.

Gülizar is a Turkish-Kosovar co-production between Saba Film, Protim VP and Plan Bee Films. Its world sales are up for grabs.