Some films take awhile to unravel in your mind. Others may continue revealing new aspects of themselves weeks or even months after you see them. Still others disclose their intentions in the first few minutes and then proceed to hit the audience over the head with its message for the remainder of the film. “When We Leave” does just this.
That it is a worthwhile message is undeniable. Based on a real honor killing in Berlin, the German entry to the Academy Awards explores concepts of family honor and shame in conservative Turkish society.
It follows Turkish woman Umay (Sibel Kekilli) as she flees her abusive husband in Istanbul to build a new life for her and her child in Germany. Automatically a family outcast, Umay is confronted by the brutal patriarchy of conservative Turkish society and met by discrimination and violence everywhere she goes.
Actress-turned-director Feo Aladag introduces us to Umay’s whole family at once in a tense dinner scene early in the film. At the table the clear gender divisions ruling the family are evident. Umay and her sister share secrets while their mother defends them. As their father’s authoritarian nature comes to light, Umay’s husband displays violent tendencies.
All of the male characters in the film, barring Umay’s German co-worker Stipe, can be lumped into the same sexist, bigoted category. This includes her unforgiving father, who tells Umay she is “losing it” when she complains that her husband beats her and her violent older brother Mehmet.
Aladag effectively immerses us in a suffocating world where fleeing an abusive husband equates to being a bad wife and disgracing your family. The stifling family living room scenes, tense to the point of implosion, are especially memorable.
The film is full of cliches, though, from Umay’s son’s tearful bed-wetting to the innumerable “moving” shots of mother and child walking hand in hand into the distance.
Kekilli is great as Umay, never giving too much away or surrendering to melodrama, which would have been very easy. Watching Umay’s relentless efforts to be accepted by her family after they expel her from their home, try to separate her from her child and even send her death threats, it is hard not to wonder why she doesn’t give up and move on.
But Kekilli’s Umay is so gentle and so admirably devoid of bitterness that she somehow just manages to keep her character’s credibility intact.
Overall, the film is let down by its lack of subtlety. Characters are polarized as “good” and “bad” in an often predictable plot. With the possible exception of Umay’s younger brother Acar, there is no discernible character development.
In a way, this makes sense, as Aladag’s aim is to portray the rigidity of these traditional mindsets, yet she still could have produced a more sensitive film without sacrificing this.
Though any exposure for these themes is positive, Turkish-German director Fatih Akin’s work, some of which also stars Kekilli, presents more intelligent and nuanced explorations of similar issues.
E-mail Mosler at emosler@media.ucla.edu.