Water and Fire

Haşmet is the son of a family in the east who has run from a blood feud and is trying to build a life in another city. Yağmur resembles nothing he knows: a girl who has not met the hard side of life, direct and unafraid. They meet and it begins. But his family has arranged another marriage for him back home, one that will stop the blood between two families. Yağmur becomes pregnant and is not allowed to tell him. Özcan Deniz directs and takes the lead. Yasemin Kay Allen plays Yağmur. Deniz also wrote the screenplay and composed the music; the narrative and the songs are tied together. The shape comes from the melodrama of Turkish popular cinema: impossible love, family pressure, custom and sacrifice. The film does not try to change that shape, it repeats it in a contemporary production. The blood feud is used as the engine of the narrative but is never argued with; it stands as an obstacle and its resolution comes from inside custom as well. It did strong business; the films Deniz directed and starred in found a steady audience in that period. The emotional emphasis is open to the end and the music supports it constantly. Who it is for: viewers who like Turkish melodrama and Özcan Deniz's films. Who it is not for: the narrative is predictable, the characters are types, and the woman's decisions change according to what the story needs.