Mustang, currently streaming on Netflix, is a coming of age drama about five sisters growing up in Turkey. While there is a good dose of humor throughout, Deniz Gamze Ergüven's film is clear eyed and unsentimental about the abuse and oppression that young women face in conservative religious societies.
The sisters are orphans living in a rural area with their grandmother and their bachelor uncle. The film begins on the last day of school as Lale, the youngest sister, bids a tearful goodbye to her favorite teacher, who is moving to Istanbul. Istanbul serves as symbol of freedom, enlightenment, and salvation in the film, a promised land where the harsh religious reins of rural Turkey are loosed. Most of the film is from the point of view of Lale. Throughout the movie the camera watches her watching; mostly watching her sisters as they sneak out of the house for secret trysts, parade about, and get pawned off in arranged marriages. Lale seems to know that there is a better world away from her village, perhaps due to the influence of her beloved teacher (we don't see much of their relationship but I picture it as being similar to that of Miss Honey and the young heroine of Matilda.)
On the trip home on this last day of school the sisters laugh and play in the ocean with a group of boys from the school. Although their horseplay is completely innocent, a local busybody spreads the word that the girls were behaving improperly with their male schoolmates. When word reaches their grandmother she confronts the girls and locks them in the house. Interesting that there are apparently no consequences for the boys; after all, we all know that boys can't control themselves.
The girls are kept from contact with the outside world; phones and books and radio locked away. Their house is boarded up, it becomes a prison. They are made to wear plain"modest" clothing devoid of shape and style. We sense that the grandmother does not completely buy in to the village's values, but is terrified of the response of the community and her son, the girl's uncle.
The uncle is a strict conservative. He watches the Turkish equivalent of a televangelist bemoan the fact that girls no longer blush when they make eye contact, and berates his mother for being too loose with the girls.
The girls are stabled but bursting with life and the desire for freedom, like mustang horses: hence the title. The movie is frank about the girls' hormonal drives but there is nothing smutty or prurient about it; with so much of the movie drenched in sunshine their budding sexuality feels as natural as the landscape. The movie also captures the feel of long hot days of summer vacation, as the girls lounge around teasing each other about boys and each others developing bodies. Only there is no school waiting for these girls in the fall. Their uncle, his male authority overriding that of his mother, forbids them to return and brings in tutors to train them in traditional homemaker skills like baking and sewing.
The movie has many wise things to say about fundamentalism, such as the way in which men who are outraged by female sexuality are often repressing their own transgressive impulses. The film never beats you over the head, however. It is wonderfully subtle.
There is a scene in the film where a new bride is accused of not being a virgin on her wedding night. When her new in laws drag her to the local hospital emergency room for a urgent virginity check the father in law has a gun tucked in his belt. Why? Is it to threaten the hospital staff if they don't comply? Is it because he is planning to kill his new daughter in law if she fails the test? We don't know. Likewise, there is an important scene in the film where a character enters a room. The scene is not pointed out in any way, no ominous music, no zooming in, no other character commenting on it. As Ergüven said in a recent interview:
"I had to stay in the exact point of view of our main character and see exactly what she sees… It’s unequivocal when you see it. And we feel exactly like the character, like, Did I see what I see? Of course I saw it! "
Christians, by the way, should not be too smug about the Muslim obsession with virginity; the cruel practice of deciding a woman's fate based on examining the sheets on the wedding bed has its origins in the Biblical book of Deuteronomy, not the Quran:
If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Fortunately Judaism and Christianity (for the most part) have moved beyond the violent patriarchalism of Mosaic law, but it is fact that many of the violent and sexist behaviors and attitudes seen in contemporary Islamic theocracies were once practiced by Christian societies.
Even today, conservative Christians in the United States have an obsession with virginity and sexual purity. Of course, sexual behavior has moral consequences and belongs within the bounds of a committed relationship; not because it is evil or shameful, but rather because it is so powerful and life affirming. Its misuse through objectification or exploitation damages and degrades people.
But virginity is a state, not a moral victory. A person who has never had a sexual encounter is no more inherently virtuous than one who has not; what matters is our current behaviour, not our past. Also, the idea that women who engage in sexual behavior are "fallen" while the men with them "simply can't help it" is repugnant. Jesus confronted this attitude in a famous scene portrayed in the the Gospel According to John:
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.”And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
Note that the adulterous woman is the one who who is seized; the man was apparently allowed to go free. Jesus exposes their hypocrisy, and tells the woman that he does not condemn her. He does tell her not to "sin again" (conservative preachers love to harp on this point), but it is important to understand what "sin" is. The word translated sin is hamartia, a term from archery that describes missing the mark. It is the same term Aristotle uses to describe the fatal error of judgement at the heart of most classical Greek tragedies. Jesus does not condemn or berate the woman; he is merely saying "don't make the same mistake again".
The sisters are orphans living in a rural area with their grandmother and their bachelor uncle. The film begins on the last day of school as Lale, the youngest sister, bids a tearful goodbye to her favorite teacher, who is moving to Istanbul. Istanbul serves as symbol of freedom, enlightenment, and salvation in the film, a promised land where the harsh religious reins of rural Turkey are loosed. Most of the film is from the point of view of Lale. Throughout the movie the camera watches her watching; mostly watching her sisters as they sneak out of the house for secret trysts, parade about, and get pawned off in arranged marriages. Lale seems to know that there is a better world away from her village, perhaps due to the influence of her beloved teacher (we don't see much of their relationship but I picture it as being similar to that of Miss Honey and the young heroine of Matilda.)
On the trip home on this last day of school the sisters laugh and play in the ocean with a group of boys from the school. Although their horseplay is completely innocent, a local busybody spreads the word that the girls were behaving improperly with their male schoolmates. When word reaches their grandmother she confronts the girls and locks them in the house. Interesting that there are apparently no consequences for the boys; after all, we all know that boys can't control themselves.
The girls are kept from contact with the outside world; phones and books and radio locked away. Their house is boarded up, it becomes a prison. They are made to wear plain"modest" clothing devoid of shape and style. We sense that the grandmother does not completely buy in to the village's values, but is terrified of the response of the community and her son, the girl's uncle.
The uncle is a strict conservative. He watches the Turkish equivalent of a televangelist bemoan the fact that girls no longer blush when they make eye contact, and berates his mother for being too loose with the girls.
The girls are stabled but bursting with life and the desire for freedom, like mustang horses: hence the title. The movie is frank about the girls' hormonal drives but there is nothing smutty or prurient about it; with so much of the movie drenched in sunshine their budding sexuality feels as natural as the landscape. The movie also captures the feel of long hot days of summer vacation, as the girls lounge around teasing each other about boys and each others developing bodies. Only there is no school waiting for these girls in the fall. Their uncle, his male authority overriding that of his mother, forbids them to return and brings in tutors to train them in traditional homemaker skills like baking and sewing.
The movie has many wise things to say about fundamentalism, such as the way in which men who are outraged by female sexuality are often repressing their own transgressive impulses. The film never beats you over the head, however. It is wonderfully subtle.
There is a scene in the film where a new bride is accused of not being a virgin on her wedding night. When her new in laws drag her to the local hospital emergency room for a urgent virginity check the father in law has a gun tucked in his belt. Why? Is it to threaten the hospital staff if they don't comply? Is it because he is planning to kill his new daughter in law if she fails the test? We don't know. Likewise, there is an important scene in the film where a character enters a room. The scene is not pointed out in any way, no ominous music, no zooming in, no other character commenting on it. As Ergüven said in a recent interview:
"I had to stay in the exact point of view of our main character and see exactly what she sees… It’s unequivocal when you see it. And we feel exactly like the character, like, Did I see what I see? Of course I saw it! "
Christians, by the way, should not be too smug about the Muslim obsession with virginity; the cruel practice of deciding a woman's fate based on examining the sheets on the wedding bed has its origins in the Biblical book of Deuteronomy, not the Quran:
If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Fortunately Judaism and Christianity (for the most part) have moved beyond the violent patriarchalism of Mosaic law, but it is fact that many of the violent and sexist behaviors and attitudes seen in contemporary Islamic theocracies were once practiced by Christian societies.
Even today, conservative Christians in the United States have an obsession with virginity and sexual purity. Of course, sexual behavior has moral consequences and belongs within the bounds of a committed relationship; not because it is evil or shameful, but rather because it is so powerful and life affirming. Its misuse through objectification or exploitation damages and degrades people.
But virginity is a state, not a moral victory. A person who has never had a sexual encounter is no more inherently virtuous than one who has not; what matters is our current behaviour, not our past. Also, the idea that women who engage in sexual behavior are "fallen" while the men with them "simply can't help it" is repugnant. Jesus confronted this attitude in a famous scene portrayed in the the Gospel According to John:
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.”And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
Note that the adulterous woman is the one who who is seized; the man was apparently allowed to go free. Jesus exposes their hypocrisy, and tells the woman that he does not condemn her. He does tell her not to "sin again" (conservative preachers love to harp on this point), but it is important to understand what "sin" is. The word translated sin is hamartia, a term from archery that describes missing the mark. It is the same term Aristotle uses to describe the fatal error of judgement at the heart of most classical Greek tragedies. Jesus does not condemn or berate the woman; he is merely saying "don't make the same mistake again".
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