“Mustang,” a 2015 drama film directed by Deniz Gamze Erügven, depicts the lives of five orphaned sisters living in a conservative, rural Turkish village. It illustrates a woeful coming-of-age as the girls feel their final freedoms of childhood slipping away and look ahead at a bleak, unfulfilling future. The film’s aesthetic value and tear-jerking plotline earned it international recognition, including a screening at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, as well as the 2016 Golden Globe Awards.
The bond that exists between the five sisters is established early, underlying the rest of the film as an unspoken support system even amongst chaos and adversity. Tragedies ensue as the girls explore their individuality and make attempts to escape the binding system in which they live. After being found playing on the beach with boys, they are forbidden to leave their house, and what little freedom they possessed (to attend school or wander through town) is taken away. At this point, Lale (Günes Sensoy), the youngest of the sisters, emerges as the film’s protagonist. She is forced to watch as her older sisters are prepared for arranged marriages and taught the duties of a wife, slowly losing their individuality in the process. Thus begins Lale’s rebellious streak—encouraging her sisters to sneak off to a soccer game with her, making friends with a young man who teaches her to drive and dreaming of escaping to Istanbul. As her sisters struggle in their arranged marriages, she realizes that a life of misery, or at best monotony, is in her fate if she does not soon discover a way to break free.
“Mustang” was filmed and is set in the village of ?nebolu, Turkey. Women’s rights are an extremely pertinent, although often overlooked, issue in Turkish society. As in many patriarchal systems, women are confined to the home, tasked with cooking, cleaning and raising children while the men are allowed to work and roam freely. There is a disparity in education (with less than 30 percent of the female population receiving secondary education), representation (with less than 20 percent of parliament being made up of women) and basic freedoms between men and women. The way that the arranged marriages in “Mustang” are portrayed, with the young woman seen as property passed from one man to another in exchange for money or goods, exemplifies the lack of humanity given to women and the negative psychological impacts they experience in response.
“Mustang” is not your typical bildungsroman. The viewer is presented with five girls of varying ages, all facing the inner turmoil of adolescence while simultaneously grappling with unimaginable external hurdles. Although the film is riddled with misfortune, its truly remarkable quality is the humor and warm feelings that are able to coexist with tragedy. In such binding situations, even the smallest of victories merits immense celebration. Although the experiences of the sisters are foreign to the majority of U.S. viewers, themes like sisterly love and conflict, the naivety of youth and struggles against the confines of society are universal, making the film particularly touching.
Viewers should be aware that “Mustang” does contain sensitive topics, such as abuse and suicide, before deciding to watch. You can find “Mustang” on Netflix for free, and it is available for rent on iTunes, Google Play or Amazon Prime. While tears are not guaranteed, the film is sure to leave you both grateful for your own freedoms and full of admiration for the strength of women around the world, no matter how young.
