In 'Motherland,' a Turkish director explores an artist's confrontation with her mother

"Ana Yurdu" ("Motherland") is a harrowing film. That is strange, given that it is a "drama" according to the Internet Movie Database. "Motherland" is not a horror film: It features no monsters or bloody scenes or serial killers. But still, the film is acutely disturbing thanks to the way it provides the viewer with an insight into the troubled psychologies of a prospective novelist and her mother. They are stuck together in an Anatolian town throughout the 93 minutes of the film, and every minute spent with them brings about new and often unsettling surprises.

Nesrin (Esra Bezen Bilgin), who dreams of being a novelist, goes back to her parents' village to finish her novel. There, her mother (Nihal Koldaş) refuses to leave her alone. In the manner of Luis Bunuel's surrealist films, she somehow manages to not leave the house throughout the film. The tone of "Motherland" gets darker as the mother struggles to shape her daughter's character, which is not easy given her age and artistic ambitions. Despite Nesrin's protests, the mother continues with her campaign to disrupt her life.


Nesrin (right), who dreams of being a novelist, goes back to her parents' village to finish her novel. There, her mother (left) refuses to leave her alone.

Senem Tüzen, the director of "Motherland," was born in Ankara in 1980. Graduating from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Academy's film department, she shot numerous short films, including "Unus Mundus," which won the Turkish Film Critics Association's Best Short Award in 2009. Tüzen shot another short, "Milk and Chocolate" in 2008, which went on to be nominated for the same prize. This is her first feature film.

Tüzen also wrote the script for "Motherland." "Yes," she said when I asked her whether this was a personal story. "Whether the film is personal is something I have been thinking about a lot. It is a personal story in two senses. The film's protagonist, Nesrin, brings a certain type of individuality to the village, and that is viewed with much suspicion. Secondly, this suspicion of her character is seen as related to her femininity. Nesrin gives her artistic creativity priority over other roles she is expected to play by society. People don't like this at all. But even if we put that aside, I think my film would still be personal. I believe that artistic creation cannot be but personal. Then again, there is a difference between the personal and the autobiographical. For an artist who can stretch her own soul into the world she lives in like a thin drum skin, every production becomes personal."


The film is shot in Niğde, the heart of Anatolian culture, for the modesty of its steppes.

In "Motherland," we don't learn much about the novel Nesrin is working on. But we witness the way she suffers while writing it. The film has a strong existentialist vein: with Nesrin we are invited to ask big questions concerning our role in the world. There are references to Turkish literary figures, like the novelist Tezer Özlü, whose books Nesrin carries with her to the town. Tüzen says she experienced numerous phases while writing the script. "After creating the character and the plot, I was chatting with a friend one day, and we asked ourselves which books Nesrin would bring with her to the village," she said. "There is much of Tezer Özlü in Nesrin. So her name stood out. To show how divided Nesrin's character is and to underline her in-betweenness, we also placed a bestselling book next to Özlü's book. It represents the kind of novel she is trying to write. Özlü's book nourishes the author persona she is trying to create. On the other hand, books from the other side of the popularity divide also enter the frame. But naturally, they don't attract the same kind of attention Tezer Özlü does."

While watching "Motherland," it is difficult to overlook the influence of Ingmar Bergman, the legendary Swedish film director known for his brilliant and depressive analyses of the modern individual. "Persona," Bergman's 1966 film, has close ties to "Motherland;" it shows a woman's struggle to get behind the mask of her individuality and discover the truth of her character. That, of course, turns out to be quite a dark process.

"Considering the structures of both films, this is an understandable comparison," Tüzen told me. "In both films there are two women, one house and a psychological journey that carries the viewer to troubled waters."

After a long search for a filming location, Tüzen decided to film "Motherland" in Niğde where she also shot her previous film "Milk and Chocolate." "Both my parents come from Niğde," she told me. "So, to be open to discoveries and not repeat ourselves, we visited numerous villages, mostly in Central Anatolia. The reason we focused on Central Anatolia was its role as the heart of Anatolian culture and also the modesty of its steppes. But, at the end, not really liking any of the places we visited, I decided to go back to Niğde and film 'Motherland' there."

Tüzen's film had a great reception in foreign festivals. It premiered at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival last year where it was shown in the International Film Critics' Week section. It won the FIPRESCI award at the Warsaw International Film Festival, the Golden Prometheus Award (Best Film) at the Tbilisi Film Festival and the Best Script Award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

"The film was received in different ways," Tüzen told me. "Firstly, it was seen as an international story about a woman's relationship with her mother, a film about prisons that we create for each other through love where we lock up both ourselves and those close to us. ... I was, of course, happy to see that people interpreted the film this way. After Q&A sessions people would come to me and whisper in private similar feelings they have had about their mothers. This was very special. And then there was another, more disturbing way in which the film was received. Some people had a cliché perception of the film, seeing it as being about 'the difficulty of being a woman in Islamic countries,' which is an implicitly Islamophobic interpretation that I found disturbing."