Les Enfants Terribles

The intimacy of a filmmaker with his subject can work wonders as a documentary. Here, a man films his family. His two young siblings are trying to break away - from the small village, from their parents and their traditions. This gives rise to extraordinary dialogue sequences: "You're not going to become anything!" the mother tells her daughter. "The father says to his son, "Let them serve me your head on a platter!'' But to limit the film to the violence of its exchanges would be to reduce its scope. It succeeds in showing the pile of barriers that stand in the way of these young people's desire for independence. There is money, religion, there is love for the parents, too, surely, in spite of everything. And then there is above all the rigidity and violence of patriarchal values which, by locking the destiny of women, locks everything else. In the midst of these obstacles, Ahmet Necdet Cupur manages to show with beauty and tenderness the strength of his sister Zeynep, that of his brother Mahmut, who little by little manage to draw their own destinies.

Jérémie Jorrand
Head of Programming and Editorial Content at Tënk, France