YAZGI/ FATE

Turkey, 2001, 119 minutes, Colour.
Serdar Orcin, Zeynep Tokus.
Directed by Zeki Demirkubuz.

The first of a series of 'Tales of Darkness' from Turkish writer-director, Zeki Demirkubuz and loosely based on Camus' The Outsider. However, rather than being the Everyman who does not believe in God but in humanity, finding nobility in this faith, the hero in modern Istanbul simply seems a passive, can't be bothered, detached bystander in the drama of life. His passionless acceptance of his mother's death, the non-involvement in his marriage and his not defending himself against false charges of murder seem matters of supreme indifference.

It is only in a long two-hander sequence where the prosecutor tries to understand him do any of Camus' deeper issues surface and the protagonist shows any sign of life. But it doesn't seem to last when he returns home to his sofa and television.

1. A Turkish adaptation of The Outsider by Albert Camus? The title? Fatalistic?

2. The city, the officers, the apartments? The prison? The musical score?

3. Musa, his age, shipping clerk, the accounts? In himself? Living with his mother? The relationship with the woman in the office? His decision to marry her? Without love? His indifference towards his mother, her death, leaving her corpse in the house, going to work? Not being able to mourn? The funeral? His marriage, loveless?

4. His boss, his wife, the murder, the charge?

5. The conviction, the sentence? The importance of the discussion with the warder? His not having any beliefs, no faith in people, no faith in the universe?

6. The blend of black humour themes with the seriousness of the portrait and the challenge of a person indifferent to everything?