HE BÛ TUNE BÛ

In the footsteps of a Kurdish family that has temporarily emigrated from the south-east of Turkish Kurdistan to plant lettuces in the north of the country, we bypass the fairy tale line suggested by the title. Instead, we discover a direct cinema committed to conveying the length of their on-going journey and the hardships and dangers of their work; in a word, the across-the board exploitation of a pauperised family, from the youngest member to the eldest. A cinema never ashamed to reveal the presence of the filmer, who sometimes dialogues from behind his camera. Yet like Tom Thumb’s breadcrumbs, a prologue very different from the story and a series of striking details (including the partridges carried by the old father) weave into this social documentary a “once upon a time” that needs no more than the spark of a teenage love-at first-sight to change register. But even when the story takes an unexpected turn, it is impossible to forget the linguistic and cultural divide separating Turks and Kurds. Be it the scornful looks cast at the peasant family in front of Ankara station or the malaise of their Kurdish overseer in the fields, we see how social and ethnic humiliation contributes to a logic that is also economic. Alternatingly respectful and impatient with those he films, Öz could have called his cruel fairy tale The Lettuces of Wrath… (Charlotte Garson)