UMUT (HOPE)
Turkey, 1970, 100 minutes, Black and white.
Yilmaz Guney, Gulsen Alniacik.
Directed by Ilmaz Guney.
Hope is one of the earlier films of celebrated Turkish director Yilmaz Guney who began filming, in the neorealistic style, in the 1960s. After his semi-autobiographical film, Yol, in 1982, he died at the age of forty-seven in 1984.
The film is set in a Turkish village at the end of the 1960s, focusing on the cart drivers in the city, especially a middle-aged man called Cabbar, who has an old cart, an impoverished family, is in debt. In a car accident, his horse is killed. The driver of the car persuades the police that his version of what happened is correct and Cabbar leaves the police station without anything. At home, he has lively children, an elderly mother. His wife of sixteen years is sometimes shrewish and angry.
He decides to sell his goods in order to buy another horse but his cart is confiscated and sold to repay debtors. Meanwhile, a friend has a scheme to find buried treasure between two bridges on a local river. A holy man is consulted, claims to know where the treasure is, holds ceremonies, using Cabbar’s sons to try to see in a basin of water where the treasure is.
The film is realistic, photographed in the Italian neorealist style in black and white. In some ways it is reminiscent of Bicycle Thieves, sometimes in the relationship between father and son. At moments there are surrealistic scenes when characters are photographed reflected in vases or other objects.
When the group goes searching for the treasure, the film resembles The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the search taking its toll on Cabbar until he is mad, digging with frenzy, upset that he has left his family at home with little money. In the meantime, the holy man keeps offering platitudinous reassurances.
The film offers scenes of poverty in Turkey, criticisms of the government, comments on the superstitions of the poor, the ironic title referring to their mad hopes. It refers to the frustrating of those hopes as well.
1. Classic Turkish film? The director and his perspective? The director performing as the central character?
2. The 1960s and 70s, Turkey, the town, the countryside?
3. The black and white photography, the neorealistic influences, come surrealist touches? The score?
4. The title, its ironies?
5. The introduction to the town, the carts, the cabs, the passengers at the station, their choices, the hard work, the old-fashioned cart, the horses and the possibility of their dying? The focus on the poor and their needs?
6. Cabbar and his group, no-one choosing his cart, the argument about a price? His lottery tickets, not being able to read, wanting the numbers checked, buying the newspaper, his difficulty in recognising the numbers? The extent of his debts?
7. His family, his wife of sixteen years, unhappy, shrewish, buying goods but not having the money, her reaction to the children and their playing up? The old mother, sitting, her meals?
8. The children, the girl at school, the money for the books, her helping her father read the numbers, her failing the exam, her mother’s exasperation? The little boy, washing the dog in the basin, his playing, crying? The girl and the young boy, together, playing, the boy with the bikes and pushing others off, their spending the salt money on riding the bike, the mother and her reactions, chasing and hitting her son? His father shielding him? The tensions, the times of peace, the meals, the sleep?
9. Cabbar and his putting his cart in the shade, the accident, the death of the horse, the assertions of the driver, at a police station, the driver and his giving the police cigarettes, the police and their comment on the government, antagonistic towards Cabbar, his humbly standing, not receiving any justice?
10. His plan to buy another horse, his hopes, his visits to those who had employed him, seeing their comfortable lives, the swimming pools, the wealth, the reasons given for not giving him a loan? The creditors taking the cart and selling it and dividing the money? The wide range of debtors? His following the cart with the dead horse into the countryside?
11. Having the drink, with his friend, the talk about the treasure, the insights of the holy man, visiting him?
12. The desperation, wanting to sell the gun, selling all his goods, the money, looking at the cinema advertisements, the thief pursuing him, the fight, getting his money back?
13. The plan to rob the rich, using the gun, Cabbar reluctantly agreeing? Going to the house, the foreigner, his taking no notice of the gun, fighting back?
14. Going to the holy man, bringing him to the house, looking into the water, the boys and their frustration at looking what was there, Cabbar seeing the reflection of the shoes, his taking it as a sign that he should dig? Frantically digging, Hassan digging, the futility?
15. The decision to go, the money, leaving the forty lira for his wife and promising to be back in ten days? Their buying the equipment, riding the donkeys, searching for the tree, finding the dead tree, the ritual with the stones, their swimming and cleansing in the river, the digging, frustration? Moving to another tree, the time passing? The friend buying the supplies? The loss of money? The long time passing?
16. Cabbar becoming mad, his obsession with the treasure, worried about his family with little money, the holy man and his aphorisms? The stones, thinking the treasure was in the snake, the death of the snake? Cabbar and his moving in circles? Frantic digging? The final image of him? No hope?
17. The images of society, poverty, desperation? Religion and superstition? A film of its period – and the changes in the succeeding decades?
