For the third time in the Panorama section of the Berlinale after her second feature film Lifelong and her first German-language feature film All of A Sudden (Special Mention from Europa Cinemas Label and FIPRESCI AWARD), Aslı Özge returns to the festival with Faruk, a co-production of Turkey, Germany, and France.
With a sort of documentary hybridized with a fictional film where reality and simulation blend, the Turkish director based in Berlin explores the implications of gentrification since her father’s condominium must be demolished in favor of a new construction.
Navigating through the labyrinths of so-called progress, the film delves into various layers beyond the main content, to deepen the relationship between a father and a daughter and more broadly, to reflect on the relationship between reality and fiction, to ultimately reach a point where it can be considered almost a film about representation.
By showing the numerous building management meetings that the father attends, entirely focused on keeping his home and not disrupting his daily life, but also showing more private moments of the man and conversations with his daughter, the film gives us an insight into the life of an elderly man in the metropolis of Istanbul in the 2020s.
Mr. Faruk is thus shown in his various roles. As a father certainly, but also as a friend, neighbor, patient, client, and opponent, while navigating the unexplored territory of construction companies and especially the rapid transformation of a city seemingly engulfed in an unstoppable frenzy. Companies, offers, decisions, discussions, meetings, evaluations, rents, guarantee letters: it seems that the value of a home, of a life spent in a place that has been cared for and loved, can be fragmented and quantified based on calculable values. Everything seems to find an equivalent in calculation. And so, the comings and goings of people – all younger than the protagonist – flow as a backdrop to which Mr. Faruk participates only as a passive spectator, because despite his energetic demeanor and his outspokenness about what does or doesn’t suit him, the final decision will not be his, and ultimately his home will indeed be demolished to make way for a newer, more modern building, part of the urban transformation program. A building where Mr. Faruk can eventually return to live.
Everything seems exchangeable with money, prices, and compromises. But apparently, this is what progress brings with it. The famous “revaluations” of parts of the city, a transformation to which society may have become accustomed, but individuals struggle.
And this is the most interesting aspect of the film: the individual.
Faruk is not just an example of a citizen uprooted from his home and who will find himself in the same space but in another place once the work is finished, but he is shown in his intimacy, as a person. It’s not just about his nudity, but also because we are now accustomed to seeing bodies in cinema that no longer seem so strictly private. But it’s the small gestures like putting eye drops in before going to sleep that reveal those human aspects that we can all identify and that allow us to skip the formality and connect directly with the protagonist.
We also have a privileged view of his relationship with his daughter, which perhaps could have been analyzed more deeply, but still conveys a discourse not only on generational transitions and the sense of protection that children take on towards their parents at a certain point, but also on the concept of representation itself.
It’s difficult to categorize this film into a specific genre because it oscillates between documentary and fiction: the characters and situations are real, but the staging of many parts is obvious and not hidden at all. This can be very interesting, as we hear the director’s voice guiding the father and managing the staging, and the breaking of the scenic illusion is, in this case, a very interesting representational choice, as it helps to bring out the reality of the characters and the familiar atmosphere that is sought throughout the film because it is in stark contrast to the cold and sterile atmosphere of the urban transformation that the Faruk family is involved in.
Although some scenes may seem forced and some moments could have certainly been explored more broadly, the film certainly is an interesting look over reality by Aslı Özge.
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