Yumurta, Süt, Bal
Yumurta, Süt, and Bal are the three movies in the “Yusuf Trilogy” by Turkish director Semih Kaplanoğlu. Chronologically, they tell the story of Yusuf, a boy from a small village who, alienated and alone, leaves to chase the opportunities of Istanbul. There he becomes a poet of some renown, but he is cut off from his family and heritage, and his isolation completes. It’s only when he returns for his mother’s funeral that the shock of it kicks in; he feels a deep guilt for having abandoned his village, having neglected his mother’s life in the last few years, and not knowing all the other changes that have happened since he left.
That is the story in chronological order, but the movies, each set in a different period of Yusuf’s life, are ordered in reverse chronological order. Thus in Yumurta, we see Yusuf returning to his village as an adult, in Süt, the circumstances which led to him leaving for Istanbul as a young adult, and finally in Bal, the events of childhood that caused his alienation.
The movies are slow and contemplative. They have no non-diegetic music and little dialogue. This draws our attention to the framing of the shots and the sound of every noise - the crickets, rustling trees, a faraway motorbike, running water. In one notable scene in Bal, the young Yusuf is resting his head on his school-desk, watching and listening to a fly walk across his pages. The slow pace is effective in several ways. First, it emphasises the stunning composition of every shot; every scene looks like a painting. Second, it sets up a contrast between the town and the city. In Süt, we go from the quiet village to the sudden cacophony of jackhammers, building sites, and carhorns. We feel Yusuf’s desolation: only by allowing a part of himself to die inside could he have ever accepted leaving home.
Shots are very long in this trilogy. Characters often gaze at things just off the camera and we are never quite sure what it is they are longing for, contemplating, or dreading. Kaplanoğlu’s style is reminiscent of Andrei Tarkovsky, though whereas miraculous and inexplicable things happen in Tarkovsky’s movies, in Yumurta the point is to rediscover the wonder in the everyday mundanities and patterns of life. This makes for a slow build-up, but it’s very satisfying when everything comes together. I also think Kaplanoğlu has a better eye for framing his shots.
In Yumurta, having returned home for his mother’s funeral, Yusuf discovers that a village girl, Ayla, had been looking after her for five years. He’s ashamed that he didn’t know this. Despite his repeated attempts to leave, events conspire to keep him in the village - legal wrangles, a broken-down car, a chance encounter with an old friend - and he and Ayla slowly begin to fall in love. Their love is never shown through physical affection or stated outright. The pivotal scene comes when Yusuf drives Ayla to a nearby city (Ayla has never left town) and the two are mingling at a wedding being held in the hotel lobby. From across the room, Yusuf locks eyes with Ayla, and smiles. At this point you know they have fallen in love and that Yusuf has decided to stay for good. Love stories are hard to believe in, especially when there is a cultural barrier. That Kaplanoğlu does it almost entirely without dialogue is nothing short of remarkable.
The trilogy makes heavy use of foreshadowing. Many events make no sense until put into context by a later movie. For example, in Yumurta, we see Yusuf have an epileptic attack while watching a ropemaker at work. Then in Bal, we learn that his epilepsy is inherited from his father, and the way Yusuf was treated by the ropemaker is the same way he (as a six year old) would treat his father, implying that epilepsy is so common and the villagers so invested in each other that they simply know how what to do when it happens.
We also see why the ropemaking triggered an epileptic fit. As a young boy, Yusuf was afflicted with a stutter and could only speak properly by whispering in his father’s ears. The trust and love he puts in his father is therefore extremely deep. This is captured perfectly by the subtle expressions and beaming eyes of child actor Bora Atlas. Throughout the movie, Yusuf checks in on a toyboat that his father is carving. When his father goes to his brother’s house to hand something to his nephew, Yusuf suspects he has given the boat away, and becomes horribly jealous for his father’s affection. Then it hits us that the epileptic attack in Yumurta has its cause in this childhood experience in Bal.
In some sense, these foreshadowed moments encapsulate what the movie is about - the small memories of our childhood that affect us to the present day and determine our lives in ways which we can never quite escape. And while we may never be able to tangibly say what those memories are and how they have affected us, their consequences are still there. It’s as Karl Marx wrote in 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon:
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.
Not being Turkish - and this being a movie deeply rooted in Turkish culture and heritage - much of it went over my head. At the start of Süt, a woman is suspended upside down from a tree above a vat of boiling milk, and a writhing snake is pulled out of her mouth. I had no idea what this meant until I looked up an interview with Kaplanoğlu in which he explains that this is a method for expelling snakes (apparently they may crawl into you if you sleep near rivers in rural Turkey). How many other things went totally over my head? And because the movie is told in reverse order, the insights of later movies reveal hidden meaning and significance in seemingly innocuous events in the earlier movies. What were the important events I simply didn’t acknowledge as important?
Being estranged from the cultural context actually enhances the movies. At the start of the movies, Yusuf is an outsider, looking into an unfamiliar way of life - just as we are. As we progress through the movies, we come to an understanding of what life in this village entails. We come to understand why Yusuf left and we start to hope for his return. His reconciliation with the past comes when he obliges his mother’s dying wish to sacrifice a lamb. Why? Yusuf doesn’t even know - he’s a secular, beer-drinking city-boy. He doesn’t believe in these rituals. The weirdness of the task put before him is enhanced by the fact that we non-Turks have no foothold for even attempting to understand it. But in accepting his mother’s dying wish, Yusuf makes his reconciliation with his past, and is lulled back into the life of the village and the terms on which it is conducted. He has come to terms with those things he cannot control and can finally return home, like the hero of Friedrich Hölderlin’s lovely poem Heimkunft (Homecoming):
Dear friends are there to welcome me.
O voice of the city, voice of my mother!
You touch and awaken what I learned long ago.
But it's really them: sun and joy shine for you,
My dear ones, almost brighter than ever in your eyes.
Yes, it's still the same. It thrives and ripens,
For nothing that lives and loves relinquishes loyalty.
This is a trilogy that rewards your attention. It is careful, considerate, and has a message of deep optimism for those alienated from their childhood and their culture - whether through immigration, westernisation, assimilation, or otherwise. What’s most remarkable is the way in which Kaplanoğlu has told this story. If, like Yusuf, you allow yourself to be disarmed, this trilogy will surprise and move you and change your sense of how a story has to be told.