The Wall

A prison in Ankara. Inside there is a women's wing, political prisoners, ordinary convicts and a children's wing. The film is chiefly about the children: boys between thirteen and nineteen inside for theft or for fighting. The warders beat them, the food is not enough, the sick are not treated and nobody comes from outside. One day the children rise. Yılmaz Güney wrote, directed and produced it. Tuncel Kurtiz and Ayşe Emel Mesçi are in the cast. It is Güney's last film. He made it in France after escaping from Turkey and died a year later. It rests on a real event: the uprising in the children's wing of the central prison in Ankara in 1976. Güney had been held in that prison and knew what he was describing from inside. It could not be shot in Turkey; the prison was built as a set in France and part of the cast came from Turkish migrants living there. The narrative is episodic and moves almost as documentary; there is no single hero, the wings are shown in turn, and events accumulate toward the last section. The language is harsh and carries no hope; Güney rescues nobody and the outcome of the uprising is known from the start. It could not be shown in Turkey for a long time. Who it is for: viewers who follow Yılmaz Güney and political cinema. Who it is not for: it is extremely heavy, the violence is distressing, and the print is technically worn.