Silent Representation of Kurdish Identity in Cinema through "Sarmaşık (Ivy)"

Abstract

All this – all the meanness and agony without end

I sitting look out upon

See, hear and am silent.

Walt Whitman, ‘I Sit and Look’(Genius, 2018).

 

Kurdish people constitute a significant part of the Turkish society for ages with some cultural and linguistic differences. This article focuses on the symbolic representation of Kurds in Turkish cinema through a close reading of the movie Sarmaşık (Ivy) in order to reveal how and at what limits the movie touches upon different forms of verbal and sound control imposed over them. Mainstream media portrays Kurds speaking Turkish with a heavy and funny accent. This tradition has changed by independent movies and at least they become visible in different types of silence. As a movie, one of the themes Sarmaşık discusses is the silence of Kurds and the role of discrimination process again by using and recreating the concrete silence. On the other hand this movie reveals how this silence provoke anxiety of majority towards minority identities, especially towards Kurds in last decades. The movie also stimulates a very important reality that losing a useful and functional part of a society is a severe lost that most people are not even aware of, and that they notice it in fear and with sorrow only after losing it.

Keywords

• Representation of Kurdish identity,Kurdish silence,identity,minorities

Silent Representation of Kurdish Identity in Cinema Through "Sarmaşık (Ivy)"

Öz

All this – all the meanness and agony without end

I sitting look out upon

See, hear and am silent.

  -Walt Whitman, “I Sit and Look” (Genius, 2018).

 

Kurdish people have constituted a significant part of Turkish society for some time but with some cultural and linguistic differences. This study focuses on the symbolic representation of Kurds in Turkish cinema through a close reading of the movie Sarmaşık in order to reveal how and to what limits the movie touches upon different forms of verbal and sound control imposed. It analyzes how Kurdish identity is constructed in film. By embodying the silence of Kurds, the film Sarmaşık brings to light the existing Kurdish situation in Turkey. It also emphasizes minority identities through its theme of silence. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Kurdish identity,Kurdish silence,Turkish cinema,Kurdish cinema

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