Name: Su da Yanar
Genre: Drama
Released: 1987-11-07
Duration: 1 h 51 min
Rating: 5.2
Cast: Tarık Akan, Sahika Tekand, Natalie Douverne

Energetic Satire on the Role of the Artist in a Repressive State

SU DA YANAR (WATER BURNS TOO) is hardly likely to be everyone's cinematic cup of tea.

An exuberant satire on the artist's role in a repressive state, it stars matinée idol Tarik Akan as a movie director trying to find both the inspiration and the financial wherewithal to make his latest film, which he believes should reflect on childhood as well as the relationship between human beings and the landscapes they inhabit. After a fruitless trek through Istanbul for inspiration, he visits the place where he grew up, but even then the creative spark fails to ignite.

Eventually a company agrees to fund him and he starts shooting, but finds to his cost that the subjects he once dreamed about no longer exist. He has the camera crew, the sound people and the script consultants, but nothing to film.

Within that straightforward plot-structure director Ali Ozgenturk takes regular side-swipes at the state, which is so paranoid about maintaining social order that it regularly imprisons artists and other creative workers. The poet (Iranli Celal) is incarcerated simply for writing verse that depicts the rapidly deteriorating situation around him. Akan's director acts as a spokesperson for these imprisoned artists; after being interrogated by the authorities on a trumped-up charge, he is free to pursue his project.

Yet that task isn't as straightforward as we first assume. Director Ozgenturk shows how the director's creative powers have evaporated; not so much due to age, or a lack of opportunity, but simply because he has nothing particularly earth-shattering to say. This fault of the imagination is summed up in the film's final sequence, when the director has nothing to film. He might have chosen to follow the path of political satire, as many of his fellow-artists have done; but Ozgenturk suggests that this mode of writing has had its day. There is no one with the poetic and intellectual capacity of a Nazim Hikmet - perhaps the Turkish Republic's greatest poet - to sum up the contemporary zeitgeist.

The narrative unfolds in fits and starts, with wildly differing sequences juxtaposed together, linked a double voice-over; from the movie director and his grandmother (Fahriye Pinarci). The grandmother's narrative describes a perfect world ruled by a benevolent god in which humanity learns to co-exist peacefully with one another: the movie director's words offer a cynical commentary on what contemporary life is really life. Together the two narratives show how corrupt the world has become, offering little or no prospect for redemption.

SU DA YANAR demands close concentration from viewers, but proves a rewarding experience nonetheless.

Turkish cinema reflects the country's position between East and West, combining melodrama, political allegory, and contemplative realism. It often explores identity, memory, and the tension between tradition and modernity. The Yeşilçam era was prolific, while modern auteurs have gained festival prominence.

Tarık Akan and Şerif Sezer in Yol (1982)

The drama genre is a broad category that features stories portraying human experiences, emotions, conflicts, and relationships in a realistic and emotionally impactful way. Dramas delve into the complexities of human life, often exploring themes of love, loss, morality, societal issues, personal growth, with the aim to evoke an emotional response from the audience by presenting relatable and thought-provoking stories.

Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)

"Su da Yanar" is the story of the dilemmas and struggle of a film director who wants to make a film about Nazim Hikmet in a time when fear and hopelessness are on a hunt, people are imprisoned, tortured and killed.

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Su da Yanar

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