Zeki Demirkubuz's newest movie "Life" has attracted widespread attention, marking the veteran Turkish director's first film in seven years. It tells the tale of Hicran, a young woman seeking escape from an unwanted arranged marriage, emphasising her struggles in a society that still clings tightly to patriarchal norms. However, the narrative's focus seems to leaning heavily into the effect of Hicran's actions on male characters in her life, rather than exploring Hicran's emotions and aspirations.
Hicran, eloquently portrayed by Miray Daner, remains mostly quiet and seems dissatisfied, contributing to the impression of her feeling disenfranchised in her own life story. Her fiance, Rıza, who she initially runs away from, embodies the patriarchal entitlement as he feels justified in hunting her down to understand why she rejected the arranged marriage. This standpoint is backed up by seemingly endless, pointless scenes and groundless justifications of male characters' unacceptable actions which pushes the narrative away from Hicran's own experience, causing the movie to fall into the trap of sympathetically over-explaining the sources of male indiscretion.
The film's narrative structure also falters, with an extended run-time not effectively utilized and a seeming lack of depth surrounding the discussion of systemic toxic masculinity. There is evidence of the film runtime being filled with needless scenes without the nuance that other Turkish directors, like Nuri Bilge Ceylan, have successfully incorporated into their films.
The movie's conclusion, added to the narrative's controversial take on male entitlement, is a spoiler that Hicran seemingly surrenders to Rıza, a man who may have also turned into her tormentor. This ending leaves audiences with the worrying suggestion that women may find love in the arms of a man with harmful, controlling tendencies. Demirkubuz's depiction of self-destructive male behaviours in "Life" hence seem to overshadow the fight against oppression and even more disturbingly, win the narrative in the end.
