Subtitles:

English, none

Extras:

Deep in rural Anatolia, five teenage sisters start to test out their sexuality, like foals taking their tentative first steps on unsteady legs. And the conservative community around them responds with panic, in this terrific, Oscar-nominated first feature. Their collective beauty automatically makes them morally suspect. And in a culture in which a woman’s worth is still measured by her marriageability, this is a serious blow to their prospects. The grandmother who has raised them since they were orphaned bows to pressure from the men in the family and locks down the girls’ freedom. After subjecting the three oldest to medical inspections to check their purity, the windows are barred and the house turned into a “wife factory”. One by one, the sisters are brokered for marriage like stock animals; meanwhile, the youngest, Lale (Güneş Şensoy), who narrates the film, dreams of taking charge of her own life and escaping to Istanbul.

Full of life even as it depicts lives in lockdown, “Mustang” is a stunning debut feature by Deniz Gamze Ergüven about five sisters in rural Turkey. Confined to their grandmother’s house, the girls bridle against losing their freedoms in a story grounded in both laughter and tears, and above all in the resilient strength of these girls against soul-deadening strictures.

The supposed sin of Lale, the narrator, and her four sisters — ages extending into the teenage years — was to romp with boys at the beach on the last day of school. Their real offense is being girls with uncontainable independent spirits in a patriarchal culture. The anxious grandmother and uncle who look after the sisters forbid them to leave the house, and turn the place into a “wife factory.” Lale, Nur, Ece, Selma and Sonay keep on pushing, sneaking away to see a soccer game, and boys, and the walls keep on closing in. Virginity tests are administered by a doctor; bars are put on the windows; prospective husbands are entertained over tea.

Gary Tooze

July 2nd, 2016

Also available in Region 'A' on Blu-ray by Cohen Media: