Law of the Border

A border village near Urfa. The land gives nothing, there is no work, and the village has one way of living: taking goods and animals across a mined border. Hıdır does that work. He believes his son should go to school, and a teacher who comes to the village is trying to open one. The newly posted gendarmerie commander is determined to end the smuggling. Hıdır wants out, and the landowner forces one last job on him. Lütfi Ö. Akad directs. He wrote the screenplay with Yılmaz Güney, who plays Hıdır. It was shot in Şanlıurfa and Mardin. The film stands outside the usual moulds of Turkish popular cinema: real locations, plain performances, and a narrative about a social condition. It counts among the founding works of social realism in Turkish film. It won at the Golden Orange festival in Antalya and Yılmaz Güney was named best actor. Its fate is a story of its own. For many years no print could be found; in the end the single copy held by the producer's family was given to the Ministry of Culture. It was restored by the World Cinema Foundation headed by Martin Scorsese, with Fatih Akın's initiative decisive in the process, and the restored version was shown at the Cannes film festival in 2011. The subject is not crime but the absence of any other option. The film neither honours nor condemns the smuggling; it explains why the land gives nothing. Who it is for: viewers who follow the classics of Turkish cinema and social realist narrative. Who it is not for: the print is worn, the pace is slow, and the ending offers no hope.