Film Review - Mustang
Images courtesy of Madman Entertainment.
Denize Gamze Erguvën is a French-Turkish filmmaker whose film Mustang garnered an academy award nomination. Mustang follows the story of five young girls growing up in rural Turkey, as they navigate their youth and the looming social expectations of marriage and purity. The film opens with the words “It’s like everything changed in the blink of an eye, one moment we were fine, then everything turned to shit.”, which is literally how the film plays out. We begin with one of the young girls, Lale, hugging her school teacher, as the two share how they’ll miss each other and the teacher reminds Lale that she has her phone number and address if she ever wants to speak. From there, the film slowly falls into the chaos that these five young girls create and endure, at its essence speaking to the level of gender inequality in Turkey, and the psychological consequences that follow arranged marriages and the immense pressure placed on virginity. Due to the girls’ ongoing rebellious behaviour, they are pulled out of school and their grandparents begin training them in preparation for marriage - this looks like sewing, cooking and religious classes. The guardians’ attempt to fix the children’s attitude problem quickly turns fatal and an eruption of chaos begins, eventually leaving two of the girls in Istanbul.
Erguvën’s care to detail is the driving force behind this film, the playfulness in the girls and their relationships with one another creates a delicate and empathetic watch for the audience. Their childhood is being stripped from them by old customs, and in turn old men, and the children try everything they can to escape it. The first and biggest shift in the film is a scene in which the girls are all eating at the table with their grandmother and uncle - in the background a man on the television can be heard preaching about women’s chastity, but the girls are distracted by their sister Ece who is making them laugh, eventually their uncle yells at Ece to leave the table and she does. A few moments later, a loud gunshot is heard, and the grandmother runs to the other room, only her cries are audible as the uncle drags the girls into another room so they do not see their sister’s corpse. Erguvën shocks the audience into this loss by creating what seemed to be a normal and relaxed atmosphere for the girls, the gunshot is the last sound to be expected and from there the film changes. Lale begins dreaming of escape, and convinces her sister to come with her to Istanbul where they find refuge in their teacher, which is the film’s end. It is undeniable that Sofia Coppola’s 1999 film The Virgin Suicides was an inspiration for Erguvëns Mustang, and it is a perfect example of subverting someone else’s idea to fit your own unique story. Mustang is alike in the themes of The Virgin Suicides, showing isolation, rebellion and inequality, however stands alone in its depiction of the every day life for Muslim women.
Mustang is playing as part of ACMI’s Days of Summer program, Saturday 17 Dec 2022 to Tuesday 14 Feb 2023. For tickets and more info, click here.