Mustang movie by Deniz Gamze Erguven (not to be confused with The Mustang by Laure de Clermont ) This movie follows the story of a family of five orphaned sisters living in a coastal village on the Black Sea. In order to ensure that they don’t mess around sexually with boys, they are confined at home and controlled by their grandmother and uncle and forced/cajolled to marry. The characters’ relationships to the outside world, each other and their circumstances, are examined and explored in this movie. The theme of gender expectations is highlighted as the girls question their destinies.
The story is moving at times and the girls are likeable and spirited, but overall, the message of the film is bleak and negative attitudes towards women and sexuality are portrayed. It also portrays men in a very negative light who have double standards when it comes to sex: they want their wives to be pure and chaste and yet have no problem in having sex with young women they are not married to, with no regard to how this might affect a young woman’s emotions, her body, or her chances of being chosen as a bride for a future husband. Since this is also true, to some extent, in our own western culture, it is a subject worth examining.
The filming of the story is both tasteful and beautiful and no explicit scenes are shown, and despite the rawness of the main theme (The necessity of women to find a way to emancipate themselves from their expected destiny), this is a film worthy of study in today’s classroom.
Verdict: This movie contains much food for thought for discerning teachers and students in the classroom. I would be happy enough for my daughter to be guided through this movie by her English teacher, but she is in an all-girls’ school. I’m not sure how this would go down in a mixed class setting: it could potentially be quite embarrassing!
(Amanda T.Co. Wexford)
Verdict: I loved this movie and watched it through with my 14 yr old daughter. It is (presumably) a fairly accurate portrayal of life in modern - day Turkey. Beautifully shot, superbly acted, great themes of family loyalty, conflict, gender roles etc. As I wouldn’t be in favour of my daughter getting married in her teens, I didn’t find the negative attitude to marriage in the film upsetting, although I do think it’s a pity there aren’t many movies being made, or shown in the classroom, of happy, successful marriages and families…..
(Lucy Co. Kilkenny)
Verdict: Good movie with modern themes and no profanity although there is one use of the word “shit” at the very beginning. There is just one line in which one of the sisters tells another that in order to avoid getting pregnant she “does it from behind”.
(Karen D. Co.Galway)