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An exiled director's representation of his own people, Kurds KurdishCinema.com / May 2, 2007 By Devrim Kilic / Melbourne Part 1 Introduction Hiner Saleem, a Kurdish director living in France, has directed five feature films; Long Live the Bride…Liberation of Kurdistan (1997) - this film will be referred as Long Live the Bride in the rest of this essay -, Beyond Our Dreams (2000), Vodka-Lemon (2003) which won the best film award at Venice Film Festival in 2003, Kilometer Zero (2005) and his most recent movie Dol (aka The Valley of Tambur) (2006). Unfortunately Beyond our Dreams and Dol are not available on DVD’s or VHS cassettes so this essay will only provide analyses of Long Live the Bride, Vodka Lemon and Kilometer Zero. Also it should be stated at first that I was only able to watch Long Live the Bride on SBS TV in Australia a few years ago, as apparently no DVD version of this film available on the market either. That is why my criticism of this film will only rely on my watching the film a few years ago. Before analyzing these three films in detail a brief background of the director will be provided in order to make it possible for the reader to gain a better understanding of Saleem’s films as they are to a certain extent the reflection of the director’s life experience. After that these three films will be closely analyzed so as to comprehend the characteristic of the films and Saleem’s portrayal of Kurds in them as a Kurdish-French director. Saleem’s portrayal of Kurdish people is important because although the director was born in Kurdistan he has been living in France for more than 15 years. So this essay will explore how a migrant or exile Kurdish director, in this case Hiner Saleem, portrays his own people and his motherland in his films. Film scholar Hamid Naficy explains in his book ‘An Accented Cinema, Exilic and Diasporic Fimmaking’ that exiled directors tend to represents their motherland and their nation with certain natural and cultural symbols such as “mountains, ancient monuments, and ruins…” Furthermore Naficy states that this is especially the case with the directors who belong to nations whose status are “in dispute, as with Palestinians, Kurds, and Armenians.”(Naficy, 160) As stated by Naficy, the statue of Kurds who live in the border of four different states, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria are in dispute. And indeed the Kurdish directors portray the Kurds and Kurdistan via some specific natural and cultural symbols; like snow, high mountains, natural life or music. For example, this is the case with the films of another Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi, from Iran. (Kilic, www.kurdishcinema. com) This essay will examine Saleem’s film in order to see if his representation of Kurds contains such symbolic images. Moreover this essay will make the criticism of Saleem’s film to see if his representation of Kurds has been influenced by his life experience in France. Also a comparison will be made between the films of Hiner Saleem and the films of Bahmah Ghobadi so as to see the differences in their representation of Kurds. A brief background of Hiner Saleem
to move out of Iraq in 1982. Saleem went first to Italy where he worked as a painter/caricaturist. Then he moved to France where he currently lives and works. It is said that Hiner Saleem did not attend any film school and his interest in cinema started when he was a child. Saleem tells us that while watching TV he had noticed Kurdish language. (Kutschera, chris-kutschera.com) As he promised Saleem made two films for TV, Dream Smugglers, and Absolitude. Representation of Kurdish migrants of France by a migrant Kurdish director Saleem’s first feature Long Live the Bride, set in Paris, takes the life of Kurdish refugees/migrants who, although living in France, have strong ties with Kurdistan as a subject matter. The film portrays a group of Kurds gathered around an association and working for the “Liberation of Kurdistan” as the film’s title tells us. This film is a pure comedy that concentrates on the comical aspects of the life of Kurdish political activists. Shot in the French and Kurdish language Long Live the Bride is a kind of political satire. The protagonist Cheto, played by French actor Georges Corraface, is a Kurdish migrant living in Paris. Cheto chooses a beautiful Kurdish girl living in Kurdistan from her video image. Interestingly, the girl who arrives happens to be to some extent “ugly” Mina, the sister of the girl who Cheto has chosen. After that the film develops around this funny event. Cheto does not want to marry Mina, played by Marina Kobakhidze, but the pressure of Kurdish society makes him live with her. In time Mina changes and in the end she comes out as a beautiful woman. But for Cheto now fallen-in-love with Mina, it is too late for everything. Though there are some images from Kurdistan, Long Live the Bride mainly takes place in France. I think an analysis of this film and its representation of Kurds will give us an idea about the influence of Saleem’s life experience in France. The portrayal of Kurdish migrants in this film caused some negative criticism of the Kurdish community of France. Some Kurds blamed the filmmaker for making a false representation of Kurds. For example Chris Kutschera, a famous French journalist, tells us that the reactions of Kurdish audiences were different from the French audiences’ response to the film.
community they largely ignored until the film came out. Kurdish audiences however, are divided. While most women love it, many Kurdish men do not like the image the film portrays, especially with regard to their relations with women. Many militants are also shocked by details which they consider to be ‘unrepresentative’; for example the film shows Kurdish militants who drink, who use force to collect the ‘revolutionary tax’, or who interrupt their mission to meet their French girl friends.” (Kutschera, chris-kutschera.com) To me Saleem’s portrayal of Kurdish people in Long Live the Bride is to some extent problematic. What is noteworthy is that in Saleem’s portrayal of Kurds there is a superior look or outsider’s gaze involved. In this film Saleem ridicules the Kurdish political activists by portraying them as ‘uneducated’ or not ‘westernized’ enough, at least as much as the director. The way people talk to each other and the way in which they discuss the Kurdish issue is rather exaggerated. The Kurds in Long Live the Bride, look strange and weird especially while talking about the fate of Kurdistan. As if those Kurdish migrants in the film were involved in the political activities just for ‘fun’ and the dialogue between them do not provide any crucial knowledge about Kurds and Kurdistan. (Ghiyati, chronicart.com) The problem with this film is the level of exaggeration. It is said that exaggeration is a part of the comedy. (Taflinger, www.wsu.edu) What I want to say is that when exaggeration is exaggerated too much it becomes somewhat problematic. And I think this is the case with Long Live the Bride. From my point of view the negative response of the Kurdish audiences, especially in France, is the result of this problematic portrayal or representation of the Kurds in the film. According to Kutschera the Kurdish audiences reacted negatively to the film because they believe the film’s portrayal of Kurds was not realistic and was not based on absolute facts. And Kutschera proposes that Saleem’s film does not have to be based on absolute facts because it is not a documentary. Kutschera says: “…it is a comedy based on the lives of Kurdish exiles, torn between their distant homeland and their new country’”. (Kutschera, www.chris-kutschera.com)
does not have to be based on absolute facts. Nevertheless this does not mean that making a comedy means just ‘ridiculing’ people whom the film deals with. The way a filmmaker portrays certain characters and certain cultures can provide some idea about the directors’ cultural, social and even ideological conceive the attitudes of the director as ‘unsympathetic’ or as ‘being negative’ not surprisingly the filmmaker may receive disapproving reactions. The problem with Long Live the Bride has nothing to do with whether it is based on absolute facts. What I am trying to say is that the excessive exaggeration in portrait of the Kurds creates some problems. The Kurdish characters of Saleem do not even look like Kurds as they are played mostly by non-Kurdish actors/actress. There are almost no characters, with which especially Kurdish audiences can identify themselves, accept to some extent Mina. The Kurds in Long Live Bride are inept in their involvement in political activities, especially while they are meeting and discussing the fate of Kurdistan at the Kurdish association. Saleem almost portrays them as a bunch of people who do not care very much about Kurdistan at all. Throughout the film Saleem just makes fun of Kurds in order to criticize “video marriages”. In Long Live the Bride the Kurds are not even able to deal properly with their own ‘national’ issues. When I watched this film I first thought that the film was made by a French or a Turkish director who does not sympathize with the Kurds at all. I believe a film has to be impartial while being critical in portraying subcultures or different ethnicities living within the context of a bigger society. Long Live the Bride does not create much sympathy towards Kurds in the eyes of the majority of the audiences. In this way its representation of Kurds causes negative responses in the Kurdish audiences. Interestingly, after receiving negative reactions, Saleem had to explain that he did not want to hurt the struggle of the Kurds and he is one of the supporters of the Kurdish liberation movement. (Kutschera, www.chris-kutschera. com) In Long Live the Bride, Saleem projects a superior or an outsider’s look at Kurdish migrants. Saleem is being superior because he is assimilated into French culture in every way and he, certainly to a certain degree, becomes a westerner and portrays his characters from a French perspective not a Kurdish one. I think Long Live the Bride reveals how much Saleem has been influenced by French culture, to the extent that he casts a troubled gaze at his own people. On the other hand the Kurdish-Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi also, to some extent, criticises Kurds and there is always comedy in his films. In Marooned in Iraq (2002) the so called doctor character is portrayed as a selfish and greedy person who only thinks about making money although there is a war and massacres going on in Kurdistan. He even says “God bless Saddam, because of him I earn a lot of money” a line which would disturb most Kurds. Yet on the other hand Ghobadi’s portrayal of the old Kurdish doctor is not just based on ridicule. Later on in the film the doctor is also seen as an indirect victim of Saddam’s regime. In one scene the doctor is seen sitting outside where everywhere is covered by snows. He cries because he has been robbed by thieves. Criticism of patriarchal Kurdish society Yet it cannot be said that all the Kurdish audiences reacted in the same negative way towards the film. As stated by Kutschera, for example most Kurdish women love the film as the film makes a criticism of patriarchal Kurdish society. In fact by making the criticism of male/female relationships in the Kurdish community of France Long Live the Bride becomes a feminist film to a certain degree. The final scene of the film is especially noteworthy. The film finishes with an ironic scene in which a group of Kurdish young women are seen watching some video images of some Kurdish men from Kurdistan in order to choose one of them as their future husband. Thus the ending of the film becomes a pure satire and criticism of patriarchal Kurdish culture. Also it should be said that, in contrast to Naficy’s statement above, there are not much symbolic images that represent Kurds and Kurdistan in this film. Although an exile director, Saleem’s main focus is not on Kurds living in Kurdistan or on his desire or love to his motherland but he is concentrated on the life of Kurdish migrants in France. Portrayal of Kurds of Armenia
comedy. Set in a Kurdish village of Armenia during winter, Vodka Lemon is about a Kurdish man, Hamo. The Kurdish villagers in Vodka Lemon are so poor that they have to sell their households so as to survive another day or so. Hamo visits his ex-wife’s grave frequently and there he meets a beautiful mature woman, Nina, with whom Hamo falls for. He has three sons but only one of them is with him, the other two living abroad, one in France and the other in Turkmenistan. Hamo waits for the money his son will send from organized and sub-plots also works well: like the plight of the piano player girl Zine, and Hamo’s granddaughter Avin's marriage with a Kurdish man. part two |
