Majority

Dir / Scr: Seren Yüce
Ed: Mary Stephen
Cast: Bartu Küçükçaglayan, Settar Tanrıöğen, Nihal Koldas, Esme Madra, Erkan Can
2010 / Colour / DCP / Turkish / English subtitles / 111min

In his directorial debut, Seren Yüce paints a biting realistic portrait of Turkish upper-middle class nuclear family in the 2000s, Istanbul, homing in to the prevalence of male authority in Turkish society with relentless precision and tension. A coming-of-age narrative unfolds against this background, where societal norms and individual proclivities collide, disillusionment with the futility of life surfaces and love with an ethnic Kurdish girl rebels against the iron rule of brutish patriarchy. Like the timeless shadow of fathers looming over sons, the city of Istanbul is cast a pall of oppressive gloom, grated away by the raw realities of corruption, ethnicity, class and gender disparities. The mood of the film is tempered by Stephen's evenly paced editing. Gripping and heart-wrenching emotions are never unequivocally expressed but embedded in the very language of filmic shots. With a perceptive eye to cinematic composition, Stephen boldly collates the shots and assembles them into a narrative of sensibility and sensitivity.