COMMITMENT HASAN

Turkey, 2021, 147 minutes, Colour.

Umutt Karadag, Filiz Bozok.

Directed by Semih Kaplanoglu.

Here is a film which takes its audience into contemporary Turkey.

On the one hand, it a film about the Turkish countryside, farmers, crops, the weather, business, successes and failures. There is also the prospect of government intervention, the erecting of towers on properties for power lines, protests, manipulations, deals.

On the other hand, there are many implications of the film about life and political life in Turkey, the influence of government, the bureaucracies, the banks and loans, deals behind the scenes.

At the centre is a farmer, his wife with whom he eloped long since, his daughters away studying, the confrontation with the authorities about the building of the tower, his help with the judge and a garden to get favourable results, interactions with bankers, discussions with the neighbour and the prospect of buying his land. His wife is seen also driving hard bargains especially with the woman who has done embroidery for her and is rejected because of the wrong colour.

There is also a religious background to the story, the application by the couple years earlier for the possibility of being selected to make the Haj and finding that they have been chosen, the preparations, financial issues, and the wife wanting her husband to be morally prepared for the pilgrimage and to confront his alienated brother and other people with whom he had financial dealings.

Strong impact for the home audience – a film for international audiences to observe, to enter into this Turkish atmosphere.

1. The work of the director? In Turkey? Worldwide? Turkish social issues?
2. The title, the focus on Hasan, his background, the farm and produce, inherited, his father, the clashes with his brother and the partition of the property, eloping, relation with his wife, his children, the daughters away in their studies, the boys at home? The workers on his property? The setting for the conflicts?

3. The setting, the land, conditions, storms, drought, wins? The crops? The workers and the gathering of the crops, salesmen arriving, contracts, bargaining? The issue of the tower to be built, on his land, his objections, the agent and the discussions in the field, the possibility of moving 100 m, to less fertile land, his going to the office, disregarded, going to the judge, the discussions, the proposition, supplying the judge with plans for his garden, the office, change of decision, the building of the tower, his not telling his wife?
4. Hasan as a businessman, his wife telling him about the failure of the land nearby, his discussion with the banker, getting the information, the costs? Going to visit the owner, his failure, manipulating the conversation, the farmer asking Hasan to buy his land, the deal? The later return of the bank man, Hasan rejecting him?
5. The choice to go on the Haj, his wife’s ambitions, the costs, Hasan and the agent, the discussions, having to go, the discussions about costs with his wife, her discussion about the elopement, not studying, not having her own money? And his not giving her full information about his accounts? The banker offering the credit card, joint?
6. The wife, the tough stances, the old woman bringing the cloth for the gift, the wife saying she wanted a blue border, the bargaining, the old lady returning the money and taking the cloth? Her urging her husband to be ready for the Haj, his going to the bootmaker, paying the debt but receiving a gift? Her urging him to reconcile with his brother, going to the worker, the argument? Finding his brother, his brother and his memory gone, his wife, the brother mistaking who he was, going out into the land, Hasan following him – and the end of the film?
7. A portrait of contemporary Turkey, the farming community, the town, religious dimensions, political dimensions, finances, deals? Farms, crops? And issues of pertinent personal integrity in this context?