Set in a remote village in Kastamonu, northern Turkey, about two hundred kilometers from the capital, Ankara, MUSTANG is the story of five daughters finishing school at the end of the summer and trying to cope with their family's demands. Custom dictates that once a girl reaches a certain age, she should be married off; hence the three oldest daughters are exposed to the ritual of meeting their partner (chosen for them by their family) and his family and listening to the groom's family asking for her hand in marriage. Rings are exchanged; and everyone looks forward to the festivities, when the entire village has a wild party, the men fire shots into the air, and the "happy" couple enjoy themselves ... that is, until the dreaded wedding night ritual.
Deniz Gamze Ergüven's debut feature takes an even-handed approach towards its material. While certainly sympathizing with the girls (the narration of Lale, the youngest (Güneş Şensoy) provides an accurate indication of their feelings), the director also makes it clear that the arranged marriage of a teenage girl is part of the village custom. Nobody ever dares to challenge it, because that might destroy the fabric of everyone's lives. Western audiences might consider it a primitive ritual that does not take the girls' feelings into account, but this is a different culture with its own particular traditions. The grandmother (Nihal G. Koldaş) makes this point clear when she tells Nur (Doğa Zeynep Doguşlu) that she was married as a teenager many years previously and "grew to love" her husband once the knot had been tied.
Yet MUSTANG also has some trenchant points to make about the ways in which such traditions can be abused. Uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) turns out to be a sadist as well as an abuser, whose sole response to the girls' wanting some kind of freedom is to build higher and higher walls round the house and install bars across the windows. This is a futile gesture; the more he creates a prison, the more the girls try to escape from it. There is a touching sequence early on in the film as all five daughters escape from their home and catch a bus taking female soccer supporters to Trabzon on the Black Sea coast to watch a match. Their enjoyment is both palpable and welcome.
In the end Nur decides not to go through with her arranged marriage; together with Lale they barricade themselves in the family home and manage to escape Uncle Erol's clutches at last. No one - least of all the viewers - knows precisely what will happen to them, but they have at least managed to exercise freedom of choice. The downside, of course, is that they have also endangered the stability of their village community. This ambiguity is not resolved by the film's end.
Director Ergüven coaxes some remarkable performances out of her five youthful actors as the daughters. Her cinematic style is brisk, even though there are perhaps too many extreme close-ups that draw our attention away from the characters' expressions rather than focusing on them. Nonetheless MUSTANG is a powerful film, a Turkish version of JEUNE ET JOLIE (2013), perhaps.
Deniz Gamze Ergüven's debut feature takes an even-handed approach towards its material. While certainly sympathizing with the girls (the narration of Lale, the youngest (Güneş Şensoy) provides an accurate indication of their feelings), the director also makes it clear that the arranged marriage of a teenage girl is part of the village custom. Nobody ever dares to challenge it, because that might destroy the fabric of everyone's lives. Western audiences might consider it a primitive ritual that does not take the girls' feelings into account, but this is a different culture with its own particular traditions. The grandmother (Nihal G. Koldaş) makes this point clear when she tells Nur (Doğa Zeynep Doguşlu) that she was married as a teenager many years previously and "grew to love" her husband once the knot had been tied.
Yet MUSTANG also has some trenchant points to make about the ways in which such traditions can be abused. Uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) turns out to be a sadist as well as an abuser, whose sole response to the girls' wanting some kind of freedom is to build higher and higher walls round the house and install bars across the windows. This is a futile gesture; the more he creates a prison, the more the girls try to escape from it. There is a touching sequence early on in the film as all five daughters escape from their home and catch a bus taking female soccer supporters to Trabzon on the Black Sea coast to watch a match. Their enjoyment is both palpable and welcome.
In the end Nur decides not to go through with her arranged marriage; together with Lale they barricade themselves in the family home and manage to escape Uncle Erol's clutches at last. No one - least of all the viewers - knows precisely what will happen to them, but they have at least managed to exercise freedom of choice. The downside, of course, is that they have also endangered the stability of their village community. This ambiguity is not resolved by the film's end.
Director Ergüven coaxes some remarkable performances out of her five youthful actors as the daughters. Her cinematic style is brisk, even though there are perhaps too many extreme close-ups that draw our attention away from the characters' expressions rather than focusing on them. Nonetheless MUSTANG is a powerful film, a Turkish version of JEUNE ET JOLIE (2013), perhaps.