Kız kardeşler

Russian literature has been something of an axiom for recent Turkish cinema, something we have seen in the work of contemporary masters such as Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Zeki Demirkubuz. Chekhov’s dramatic spirit likewise animates KIZ KARDEŞLER, the third feature by Emin Alper. At its heart a family drama about an elderly widower and his misguided attempts to improve the lot of his daughters, KIZ KARDEŞLER departs from surface realism to embrace black humor, melodrama, and Expressionism, all in order to reflect the delusions that drive us on.
Set in a desolate village in central Anatolia, where the only available work was a mine that has long since collapsed, Alper’s film stages a confrontation between rural patriarchy and urban dreams. All eligible men having long since fled the village, the father’s solution has been to adopt out his daughters to city folk and maids and nannies.
But each of them has been sent back down to the village for different reasons. The one constant is that the women are constantly subject to the whims of others. KIZ KARDEŞLER shows the women’s ambivalence, their destinies triangulated through flawed, unreliable men. (Michael Sicinski)

In the presence of Ece Yüksel.