TIME FOR SOME CRIME AND MYSTERY : "VAVIEN"

There are good and exciting things happening in Turkish cinema. I mean yes, directors like Semih Kaplanoğlu (Berlin Film Festival – Golden Bear) and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Cannes Film Festival – Golden Palm) are the ones getting all the praise but they are not alone in making achievements. Normal films, for lack of a better word – minimalist cinema is something I respect and enjoy greatly but I wouldn’t call it “normal” if you see what I mean. But never mind that now, what I want to talk about is a film about lies, deceit and murder. Now, a good quality film noir is literally non-existent in Turkish cinema. And if this carries distinct traces of humor that stop it qualifying as a “film noir” it is definitely a “film gris” if you see what I mean…
Celal and Sevilay (played by Engin Günaydın and Binnur Kaya respectively – two of the best Turkish comic actors of today) are a married couple living in a small Turkish town with their son Mesut. They have a pretty average life as far as family lives go, Celal is an electrician, Sevilay is a housewife and they make a living somehow. And all three family members have their own separate lives that the other members don’t have a clue about… Mesut sneaks out of his bedroom window every night to meet up with his girlfriend next door. Sevilay stashes money her parents send her around the house without telling the family and is close to amassing a small personal fortune. And Celal wants to kill his wife to marry the woman of his dreams. And because she really annoys him. Now, Celal is not exactly known for being a man of action, but today he will make an exception. He plans the whole thing carefully, prepares and sets the deadly trap in action. The trap seems to succeed alright… However, it will have results that Celal’s wildest dreams or nightmares couldn’t have foretold…
If nothing else, Vavien is a brilliant example of dysfunctional families. Whether family members have seemingly happy and peaceful existences or are literally at each other’s throats, sometimes, just sometimes, they never quite get round to understanding one another. You can co-habit the same house for years and actually have no idea who you married to begin with or who your offspring actually is. Sevilay adores Celal to the point of worship and has no idea, nor could she ever imagine that her beloved husband would try and kill her. She is a good girl who does as she is told, so when her father (who we never meet but only hear on the phone) instructs her to hide the money and not tell Celal she does faithfully, but not out of a lack of trust for Celal. The same goes for Celal’s relationship with his son. Poor Mesut is never sure why his father approves of him or scolds him (and the two moods seem to come in rather unpredictable swings). As for Celal and his “wild and passionate” affair (that is in fact a one-sided obsession on his part) no one who knows him could believe him capable of such emotion. So, in fact, every man is an island. Miserable message, yes? Not really. While The Taylan Brothers (I’m not being facetious; their surname is Taylan, they are brothers and that’s what they call themselves!) make no bones about the utter lack of communication between family members, subtle elements of comedy pertaining to everyday life are slipped in, making the whole film that little bit more real. And don’t forget, the fact that you are not communicating doesn’t necessarily mean you have a sad relationship. In the end, as long as everyone gets what they want out of the whole affair somehow, who cares whether you know what the other person is thinking? That’s what Vavien argues anyway. Watch the film and see what you think…