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Witches

I just watched Witches on Mubi, and I must add it was one of the most impactful documentaries I have watched in a long time. For such a delicate topic, postpartum depression, everything is handled so carefully and delicately. A lot of women talk about many taboo themes, and the movie approaches these themes in a very empathetic and understanding way. The connections between women who confessed to being a witch and postpartum psychosis were also incredibly interesting. First of all, a lot of women in this condition are suicidal, and they know that they will killed if they confess to being witches. At the same time, they feel extremely guilty for having these feelings and these thoughts. Confession could be a way to punish themselves. Overall, it was not a fun watch, but not depressing either. With the connection with various films, it offers a very intriguing narrative!

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Istanbul Hatirasi: Köprüyü Gecmek

I watched this documentary yesterday and it just filled me with nostalgia. Not only the scenes and editing was really interesting to watch, but also the selection of music pieces and musicians was a really good collection that represented 2005. It has been almost 20 years since the movie was made, and you can see how people changed, the city changed, but at the same time there is this feeling that stayed the same.

One thing that caught my attention was how people in turkey defined themselves a lot with this bridge metaphor. Being from turkey already means that you are born with an identity crisis in the context of the world. No one know if you are asian, european, or middle eastern. Everyone has their opinions about turkey and turkish people. And even if it has been overly used metaphor from today's perspective, it was interesting to see what being a bridge meant for people, how they identified with it.

I definitely suggest this film!

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Poor things

Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, the movie tells the story of a Frankenstein-esque woman and her adventures. The costumes and architecture in the film were incredible.

Including many references and mixing up different historical styles, the designers avoided pinching down a certain time period, instead, they created a parallel world where the people and the architecture are both whimsical.

It was interesting to see the mastery in the acting of Emma Stone when she played a character with a grown woman's body and a child's brain. Similar to the Dogtooth movie, she kind of started to grow once she discovered what sex and pleasure are. She understood that there is more to it in the world and she escaped her situation. However, the real turning point we see in her when she transformed from being a child to a more adult character when she started to understand pain. It is not only the pain she feels herself but also her ability to empathize with others deeply. Therefore, it could be argued that the director might want us to think that pain and suffering, however bad they are, make us who we are, and help us to define ourselves.

The "father" of Bella Baxter, Godwin, has been used as a scientific prop by his father and he had to endure excruciating pain. It could have been easily constructed as the background story of an evil personality, however, this trope has been subverted in this film. He is far from nice, but he is not evil either. His actions are guided by his passion for science, which historically has gone sideways on many occasions, but in this case, it is hard to tell, and we are left with mixed feelings. Bella continues this lineage by becoming a surgeon as well and also changing the brain of his ex-husband with a sheep brain, but we can see this cruelty slowly fading away throughout the generations.

The depth and the comedic nature of the film make it one of the best movies I’ve seen recently. It was truly a masterpiece.

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Small Things Like These

I read Small Things Like These from Claire Keagan.

Maybe because English is not my first language, the writing style was hard to get into but the story was interesting. It is about a man called Bill Furlong living in a small Irish town. The book starts with a short intro about how he grew up and then continues with his current life with his wife and kids. It is a simple, unglamorous life, but Keagan could make it sound interesting. My assumption here is that the book probably referred to a lot about life with the power of the catholic church hanging around, which I also couldn't really grasp since I lack the references. Another important thing I missed here was about Magdalene Laundries, where many women were incarcerated for crimes that today we wouldn't even think are crimes. I admired the author's choice to keep Irish people as her only target audience even though she writes in English. Many authors all around the world write in English to access many more people, but at the same time, they overexplain many cultural trademarks that people from their own countries know. Therefore, it sounds like they write not to tell their story but somehow let the world know about their countries. It is a hard thing to balance. I'm sure if I was from Ireland, I would be ten times more impressed by the book, the story, and the references. But as someone from far far away, it took me some research to appreciate the beauty of the book. What I liked about it before my research was the ending. The act of kindness and courage that Furlong showed, I hope each one of us has it somewhere inside.

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White Lotus Season 2

Part #1: Initial thoughts

The theme of this season was sexuality, therefore it is not surprising that we see two characters, Lucia and Mia, as sex workers. During the discussions of metoo movement, the topic of sex work came up, and I thought it is a great discussion to take the blame off the women, recognize that this is a job, and a dangerous job, and put the judgement off of these women. But there was always a part of the discussion where it is discussed as empowering or aspiring career option. And I think in the series, they took the discussion from that perspective. We see two young women on their job, with none of the dangers of sex work discussed. We don’t know their background, or their motivation. We just see two women hustling and getting away with everything they did. 

This series is also about money and power, and maybe the series is showing us, if sex is their power, they know that they’re holding it. 

Another interesting dynamic was between three generations of men. Each of them represented their own generation, in terms of behaviors and thoughts on women. The grandpa, Bert, treated women terribly, cheated on his wife, and always knew that he could get away with everything. His wife probably didn’t work and had no income. Even though she knew that he was cheating, she had no option to just leave him and move on with his life. The father, Dom, has the same behavioral pattern as his father, but he has to face the consequences. His wife is strong and economically stable enough to leave him, at least after 20 years of marriage. Bert fails to understand why she is leaving him, thinking he cannot keep her; but the biggest difference between him and his son is not in themselves, but in their wife’s power. And the son, Albie, tries to position himself against them, knowing that in his generation these behaviors are unacceptable and he wouldn’t have any chance if he would keep the same pattern. But it is not as easy to escape what he saw through his whole life. 

To continue on the subject of Albie, I think it was a little tone-deaf for the show to make him discuss the “nice guy” trope in a way that it will give those types of people another argument. I think that part could’ve handled more properly. Especially thinking that it is just one scale of niceness and there are no other parameters in the world is absurd. You can be nice and exciting, but it is no surprise that Albie, with all those terrible male role-models, have no idea how to build a relationship with the women in his life. 

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Aftersun (2022)

I watched Aftersun in Munich film festival a couple of days ago, and I still feel the melancholia lingering on the back of my head. 

The honesty of the feelings and the nostalgia of the cinematography reminded me the memories that I didn’t even know I remembered. It is a collection of memories that Sophie remembers when she becomes a grown up and has a child of her own. She looks at old videos and tries to recall all those nice moments they had in a vacation in Turkey. Her parents are separated, maybe they weren’t even together once. They became parents when they were 20, so in their 30′s they still feel like a child themselves, trying to figure out their own way in life. 

The movie reminded me of my own personal memories, since it was very similar to a trip we made as a family. The same reception, the carpet shop, finding my first international friend (although Sophie was too shy to do). 

The movie was very successful to convey the feelings of an 11 year old whose parents are divorced and she is trying to fit in with the other teenagers. She asks her father whether he and her mom could get back together. She watches other teenagers kiss, maybe not because of envy, but to understand what all the fuss is about. She tries her first beer, and rebels against her dad.

At the same time, we see the struggles of Calum, the dad. Since we see the world mostly through the lens of Sophie, we can mostly guess what is going on in his mind. He struggles with money, he doesn’t have a stable job. It is clear that he still isn’t ready to be parent even though he has a daughter 11 years old. He doesn’t feel like he fits in in his place of origin, but he feels the burden of being away at the same time. The actor, Paul Mescal, is very talented to show the underlying melancholy lingering in our lives as we move on. His character is genuinely depressed, but he is trying to hide it from his daughter, or maybe he feels a glimpse of happiness in this short vacation. He does Yoga, and Tai Chi to calm himself down, but it doesn’t work each time. 

In conclusion, this movie is a perfect mixture of nostalgia and melancholy. It gives you a smile with a pinch of sadness. 

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Herland

I recently read the book Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was a very interesting and refreshing book in general. The book can be considered as a museum of first wave feminism. 

It starts with three young and adventurous men hearing about a country where only women exist. The discussions between them represented a view towards the ideas of 19th-20th centuries. They were discussing whether if these people were “modern” or not, which is a very outdated way of looking at unknown cultures. But also it was very interesting to read how people were thinking about each other, and how the cultural differences were perceived. 

It is also important to note that the time that the book was written people still saw the world as a place to be explored, going to the places where no one (from western countries) have been. Now, with the development of digital technologies, satellites and accessibility of information, it is hard to imagine that someone in this age would write book about an unknown land, that can only be accessed by plane. 

The book is narrated from the perspective of one of the guys in the expedition, which had more of a neutral perspective towards what was happening, and he was trying to be more analytical. The other guys represented two types of guys that is still present today. The first guy is the one seeing women as territories to be conquered. He only sees them as sex objects and doesn’t value anything else about them. The other guy represents a completely opposite, but almost as annoying male typology: the guy who adores women in a caricature way. In his mind, he is placing the women above all mankind, and expects everyone to be hail Mary. But it still doesn’t provide the respect that women want. 

It is also notable that when the author was imagining a utopia, she saw that it could only be possible where men don’t exist, which explain how helpless she must have felt during Suffragette period. She sensed that there is still hundreds of years until we reach equality and in that time period, it would be just better without men. Isaac Asimov wrote novel in a similar genre, science fiction. And his writings are criticized frequently how every character is male. Yet, he is one of the most known authors in his field. Whereas, Perkins is becoming recently popular. 

The reason why I wrote that the book represented the ideas of first wave feminism is that first of all, there was an extreme amount of emphasis of motherhood in the book. It was as if she is trying to prove how valuable women are to society by stressing the importance of motherhood. It would be considered outdated now, because being a mother is another identity given to women in regards to another person, which many women find valuable of course. But women now want to be respected just by themselves, not related to anything or anyone.  

Another point I’d like to mention is that there is land full of women, and no one is having sex. It is also very heteronormative and prudish way of looking at the world considering today’s point of view. But at the same time, it was very refreshing to read and see how the society has changed and came a long way. I wonder how people living 100 years later would see out perspectives today. 

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Tableau vivant, literally means living pictures, was another form of art which combined visual arts and theater. People were depicting famous art pieces as if they were alive. 

Relating it to the popular culture, it directly reminded me of the episode in Gilmore Girls (S4 E7) where they were making famous paintings alive. It is a great communal activity, since it creates an engagement with the artwork as the whole audience. This activity brings individual museum experience into a new context. 

With this year’s pandemic, many museums created challenges to create tableau vivant at home, so that people will still be engaging with art even though they are stuck at home. 

The interesting thing I found about this concept is that it is in some contexts considered as the prerequisite of performance arts in terms of bringing theater-like live action into visual arts. It evolved into something completely different, but knowing this information opens a new perspective. 

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Rrose Sélavy - Marcel Duchamp’s Alter Ego

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Yves Klein -  Aerostatic Sculpture

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Yves Klein -  Leap into the Void

this photograph is created by overlaying two different photographs on top of each other to create the desired effect. at first glance, it seems like he is flying, and happy with his situation, but at the same time he looks terrified of falling. we assume, as the audience, that he will be okay. but it could have been “real” as well, that he fell down later. it creates a grasping effect that is captured in a photograph.