Envy

A film set in Zonguldak in the 1930s. Seniha is in her forties. Unmarried, her parents dead, and living in her brother's house. Halit works for the mining company. He has an orderly life and looks after his sister. Halit has just married. Mükerrem is in her thirties, beautiful, and the person everyone in the house looks at. Seniha treats her well. They spend time together, share confidences, and from outside they seem close. Something else is going on inside. Seniha was passed over in her youth as well. She was thought plain, was not wanted, and nobody asked for her; now she lives the same thing daily inside the house. Mükerrem begins an affair. Nüzhet is a young man and she grows close to him. Seniha sees it. She does not prevent it; she makes it easier. From there the film becomes a story of waiting. Seniha does nothing, she only waits for the right moment, and when it comes she says a single sentence. What the narrative is interested in is not adultery but the patience of envy: the film shows that Seniha has an account spread across years and that this is not a sudden anger. The narrative takes nobody's side. Mükerrem is weak, Halit is blind, Nüzhet is worthless; the film saves none of them. The form is cold. The scenes are long, the camera still, there is almost no music, and the interiors are constantly dark. The telling proceeds through Seniha's eyes and the audience stands where she stands; that is what makes the film uncomfortable. The source is Nahid Sırrı Örik's novel, the author's first. It was shot in Safranbolu. Nergis Öztürk won best actress at the Golden Orange for the part; Zeki Demirkubuz was named best director at the Golden Boll. Nergis Öztürk, Berrak Tüzünataç, Serhat Tutumluer and Yetkin Dikinciler are in the cast. Zeki Demirkubuz wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes Demirkubuz's cinema and hard adaptations of Turkish literature. Who it is not for: anyone looking for sympathy; the narrative lets you get close to nobody and the pace is very low.