Bride With The Black Veil, The

The film is, in a sense, a cooperation between Süreyya Duru, Vedat Türkali and Bekir Yıldız. While Türkali has adapted three different stories of Yıldız in his script, Duru has managed to realise from this material one of the masterpieces of not only his own filmography, but of Turkish cinema in general. The film is made up of three stories, all three of which are set in Eastern Anatolia where semi-feudal relationships are still dominant. The ruthless pressure of the sovereign class based on exploitation, the maintenance of customs and traditions leaning on uncontemporary way of life paves the way for a series of events to end in tragedy. In one of the stories, the drama of a young girl, so young as to be called a child who is given as blood money to the family of someone killed by her father in a vendetta is narrated. Another one touches on the smuggling that people in Eastern Anatolia engage in around the border. In this story between life and death, while a young man dies, the piece of gold he has hidden between his teeth, which is the price for his life, is later secretly taken by his sister out of his mouth. Still another story tells about the clash between the hired hands of the agha with destitute, poor but honest people. Three stories, one film. Süreyya Duru, setting forth from the script in which Vedat Türkali has embroidered pain and despair, writes a poem where different personalities become heroes in a tragedy, but still fall captive to customs and traditions deriving from feudal relationships. The Bride With the Black Veil, is one of the masterpieces of Turkish cinema, a film expressing the reality of Eastern Anatolia in a most striking and true way. The film boasts a mature and perfect cinematic language far beyond the cliché norms of Turkish cinema, while at the same time narrating a problem which has been experienced in the past, is being lived through now, and will perhaps hold true for a long time to come, taking the main causes of exploitation based on ownership of the land as background for events. That’s why it has thrice been obstructed by censors and can only meet its audience now, thanks to a resolution of the council of state.
Turkey
'
1974

Director
Süreyya Duru

Script
Bedrihan Red

Cinematography
Ali Ugur

Production
Murat Film

Cast
Aliye Rona
Aytaç Arman
Hakan Balamir
Ihsan Yüce
Semra Ozdamar

Music
Sadik Gurbuz

Awards
Best Actress
Best Film
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor Antalya Film Festival

Festivals
6th Festival on Wheels
TURKISH CINEMA CENSORSHIP