{"id":6659,"date":"2024-10-25T11:33:44","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6659"},"modified":"2024-10-25T11:33:44","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:33:44","slug":"mustang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/mustang\/","title":{"rendered":"Mustang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Mustang <\/strong>(2015)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cohen Media Group\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (mature thematic material, sexual content, a rude gesture)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Deniz Gamze Erguven\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Deniz Gamze Erguven and Alice Winocour\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Warren Ellis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: David Chizallet and Ersin Gok\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 15, 2015 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Gues Sensoy, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Elit Iscan, Tugba Sunguroglu, Ilayda Akdogan, Nihal G. Koldas, Ayberk Pekcan, Bahar Kerimoglu, Burak Yigit, Erol Afsin, Suzanne Marrot.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken in Turkish w\/English subtitles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the first time in I don\u2019t know how long, I didn\u2019t see any of the movies nominated for Best Foreign Film prior to the announcing of the year\u2019s Academy Award nominees. That was yesterday. Mustang<\/strong>, the Turkish-language entry from France, opens in Philadelphia today. It\u2019s a strikingly beautiful film about the grim reality of living in a patriarchal society.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Five sisters are imprisoned in their home by their strict uncle (Pekcan) after their playful behavior with a group of male classmates is mistaken for promiscuity. Being a teenage girl is tough enough in a free country, now imagine one trying to come of age in a place where women are traditionally kept in subservient roles. It can\u2019t be easy what with all the angst and sexual curiosity that comes with being a teenager (or preteen). You think slut-shaming is bad? How about getting punished for just being a normal young girl? Director (and co-writer) Deniz Gamze Erguven, making her feature film debut, infuses Mustang<\/strong> with the same sense of haunting melancholy as Sofia Coppola\u2019s debut The Virgin Suicides. The two films, aside from setting, are remarkably similar right down to the sense of outrage the audience feels towards the oppressors.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s the last day of school and five sisters (from youngest to oldest)- Lale (Sensoy), Nur (Doguslu), Ece (Iscan), Selma (Sunguroglu) and Sonay (Akdogan)- are looking forward to a leisurely summer. While walking home along the beach, they play in the water with some boys, splashing around and engaging in \u201cchicken fights\u201d. When they get home, their grandmother (Koldas) is waiting to scold and beat them for illicit behavior. It seems that a neighbor spotted them playing and reported it to their grandmother who\u2019s been raising the girls since their parents died. The uncle decides that from here on in, the girls will be confined to the house and have no contact with the outside world. Everything that could possibly corrupt- e.g. magazines, fashionable clothing, phones and the computer- is removed from the home. The house is turned into a fortress with bars on the windows and locked doors. It\u2019s also decided that arranged marriages will be set up for the older girls. All the older female relatives show up to teach the girls how to be proper wives.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Free-spirited Lale, who doubles as narrator, can\u2019t and won\u2019t be contained. Like the titular horse, she yearns to run wild and free. It\u2019s Lale who talks the others into sneaking out to attend a football game, an activity forbidden by her uncle (he won\u2019t even let her watch the game with him and his friends).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Even though much of Mustang<\/strong> is grim, it has a dreamy, storybook quality to it. The girls do whatever they can to make the best of their situation. In one scene that truly represents their close bond, they goof around on their bedroom floor, a tangled mass of hair, legs and feet. The five girls give amazing performances. The fact that none of them are professional actors gives Mustang<\/strong> an extra layer of authenticity. It doesn\u2019t hold back when it comes to certain hard truths about what goes on behind closed doors, but its storybook tone makes it a little easier to take. It doesn\u2019t wallow in ugliness like other films dealing with female oppression in conservative regions in and around the Middle East (it\u2019s set in a small village in Turkey). It\u2019s beautifully shot; the cinematographers make great use of the region\u2019s natural landscapes and the Black Sea.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It also gives us a tenacious young heroine determined to escape the bonds of a male-dominated society before it\u2019s too late. It\u2019s interesting to observe how each girl reacts to the ever-tightening restrictions placed on them by closed-minded authority figures. Much of what happens in Mustang<\/strong> is bound to make the viewer angry; injustice and unfairness based on race, religion or gender tends to have that effect. Thankfully, Erguven balances it out with a hopeful ending. It\u2019s not always easy to watch, but it\u2019s definitely a worthwhile viewing experience.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mustang (2015)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cohen Media Group\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (mature thematic material, sexual content, a rude gesture)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Deniz Gamze Erguven\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Deniz Gamze Erguven and Alice Winocour\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Warren Ellis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: David Chizallet and Ersin Gok\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 15, 2015 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Gues Sensoy, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Elit Iscan, Tugba Sunguroglu, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas","category-foreign"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Mustang-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6659"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7282,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659\/revisions\/7282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}