Last Saturday, award-winning Turkish filmmaker Karim Öz premiered his latest film, Zer to Canadian audiences as the first in a series of screenings in Canadian cities.
Zer is the story of Jan, a young man who has immigrated from Turkey to New York. The film begins with Jan, a music student whose grandmother is dying. As her health decays she sings Jan a Kurdish song she calls “Zer.” Jan, not knowing his grandmother could speak Kurdish, goes on a voyage of self-exploration and reverse assimilation across Turkey seeking his and the song’s ancestry.
In Öz ’s country of origin, the film’s political themes were so controversial that the film was censored. Two scenes including one that makes overt reference to the 1938 Kurdish genocide and another where he meets with Kurdish guerillas, were not included in the Turkish version of the film.
Öz spoke after the film viewing to the audience after the show through an interpreter.
“This film is not just a story of Kurdish immigration,” Öz said to the audience. “It is a story of all modern life.”
Öz carefully constructs his scenes into a beautifully contrasting mosaic. Shot with a vivid steeliness, he challenges the viewer to recall previous scenes and viscerally remember themes instead of stating through dialogue.
The harsh manmade light of New York dominates the film early on, as Jan crosses the threshold in his spiritual journey, the film decreases the key lighting to drive the theme home. Empty space and silence are employed masterfully to evoke loneliness, though these themes become overused past the film’s midpoint.
Nevertheless, the film is striking and powerful. The movie is low on plot, more focused on the exploration of character.
The film, a political fiction work, is based in the documentary tradition that has defined much of Öz ’s career. His movie also interestingly contains “supra extras,” non-professional actors who are native to an area and hired on location as actors in the film.
The use of real people instead of actors is a large reflection of Öz career as a documentarian.
“It’s two different challenges—professional and amateur actors—but both have their advantages. In particular, for this film, the use of real actors helped me to tell the story of modern-day Turkey, better than a professional actor could,” Öz said.
When asked of how he thought these images of modern-day Turkey would be portrayed in the future, given the worsening political climate. Kazim said:
“As the government clings to power, we enter a worsening political climate—we are now first entering a deepening economic crisis. I hope that we can overturn the government without entering civil war, but it’s impossible to know. It will be hard to make these films in the future but . . . the promise of cinema, it is to keep telling these stories.”
Provided photo
