Mustang is a delight, stitched together with threads of melancholy. Directed and co-written by Deniz Erguven, a French-Turkish filmmaker with her debut film. It’s in Turkish with subtitles, with an ensemble of five captivating actresses that enchant from the first opening scenes. Each is remarkable.
They portray sisters all in their early to mid teens – with the exception of Lale (Gunes Sensoy), who is perhaps 11 or 12.
Each is brimming with youthful vitality and together they form a collective of willful sweetness that illustrates their bond as well as their rebelliousness. Each is coltish with rich, streaming hair, the intensity of their emotions palpable and wonderful. What is done to one is done to all, and though they argue and disagree, when faced with an impenetrable force like their grandmother (Nihal Koldas), they immediately form a united front.
Orphaned when young, they are now being raised by their grandmother and uncle Erol (Aybeck Pekan). Though they vary in age, all, with the exception Lale, are on the cusp of young womanhood. Their youthful innocence is self-evident, their connection to one another unbreakable.
The place is a small town in northern Turkey on the Black Sea. It is the last day of school and summer stretches before them. Excited, filled with anticipation, they walk home with a group of boys along the shoreline of the ocean and end up splashing in the water, their uniforms drenched, some sitting on the shoulders of the boys as they try to push each other into the water.
A neighbor sees them laughing and playing like young seals and reports their behavior to their grandmother who is scandalized and angry. She accuses them of pleasuring themselves while sitting on the shoulders of the boys – an idea completely foreign to the sisters. And yet the grandmother begins a campaign of cloistering the sisters as if they were nuns, having taken vows of chastity (they must remain virgins). With the uncle’s support, the grandmother begins to fashion the two story house into a fortress, buttressing the walls, attempting to prevent every avenue of escape the girls might use to slip out into the night (or day). As well, she undertakes a program of preparing the girls for matrimony – cooking lessons, cleaning, sewing – an idea that shocks and even repels the sisters.
Of course, both the uncle and grandmother are dealing with a collective life force, a blossoming sexuality that is culturally forbidden as a topic for discussion and behavior to be repressed at all cost.
And so, what Lale regards as a “wife factory” is set in motion with the grandmother orchestrating arranged marriages for the older girls. In contrast, Lale can only think about escaping the fate that has descended on her muchloved sisters.
She plots and plans her freedom, struggling with the cultural imperatives that confront every young Turkish woman and so she begins a pitched, subversive battle to find an alternative for herself. She knows intuitively that she is facing a rigid (even violent), patriarchal future and rejects a life in which she has no choices.
Mustang is a moving and engaging window into a culture far removed from the West. To the film’s credit, it avoids expository judgment; instead it allows circumstances and contrasts to carry and display a chasm of cultural differences in what proves to be a beautifully crafted and remarkable narrative.
As an aside, Mustang has been selected as Best Foreign Language Film from France by the Academy of Motion Pictures. It is that good.
Mustang. Directed by Deniz Gamze Eguven. In Turkish with subtitles. Starring Gunes Senjoy, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elit Iscan. 1 hr., 37 min. Rated PG-13. Released in 2015. Streaming on Prime/Apple tv.