Kuyu (1968)

Metin Erksan’s most controversial film, Kuyu/The Well (1968), considered as one of the classics of Turkish cinema, is a rural drama that focuses on a relationship, founded on male obsession and female resistance, which culminates in tragedy.

Based on a newspaper article, but decorated with the fantasies of Erksan, the film displays the helplessness of an oppressed but level-headed young village woman against the perverse determination of a man obsessed with her.

The film opens with Osman watching Fatma bathing in the river, the classic narrative convention that generally forewarns the audience of imminent sexual violence. Osman steals Fatma’s clothes and, pointing a gun to her face, delivers an ultimatum: ‘Be my wife or I’ll kill you.’ When she resists, he ties a rope around her waist and pulls her through the arid landscape to coerce her, but she does not want to give herself to a man she does not love. When she escapes, runs after her, grabs her and pushes her to the river. ‘Water cleanses all sins’, he says. As she lies down on the grass in silent defiance, the camera views Osman from her perspective telling her that the woman is created from the tiny little bone of the man and that is not without reason. There is a reason behind everything God does. He did that for the woman to walk behind her man. Women should always obey men!

Osman is arrested, and Fatma returns to the village where men gossip about her. On his release from jail, Osman again points a gun at Fatma’s face and rapes her (the scene is not shown). She escapes again. Osman is arrested once more. Fatma’s mother finds her a husband, a middle-aged fat man called Ibrahim. After all, not many men want to marry a girl kidnapped twice.

There is a long shot of Fatma on horseback as a bride, but then she runs away. The groom blames the mother, using an old proverb: ‘One who does not beat her daughter beats her knee.’ Another man declares that ‘the meat that the dog smelled should not be eaten’. The mother blames her black destiny. As Fatma is getting ready to hang herself, Mehmet, a fugitive from death row, saves her. The camera distances itself as the two lie on a rock in the sun. The rural police kill Mehmet, and Fatma returns to the village still wearing her bridal headgear. Her mother kicks her out for disgracing the family and she finds a job serving in a cheap bar. Osman comes out of jail and kidnaps her a third time. He tells her he is determined to marry her even if she is a whore. She says he made her a whore and she’ll never say ‘yes’. He ties her up again and the same desperate journey begins.

When Osman climbs into a well to wash his face, Fatma throws stones at him. In a dramatic shot, her head is framed within the circle of the mouth of the well with the light behind, while he is groping in the dark below. Fatma’s patience culminates in revenge, albeit with violence, after which she has no choice but to kill herself.

The Well is structured around the obsession of a man, but the woman is not a passive character. Within her limita­tions she stages a resistance. Perhaps she is not able to win a physical battle against the brute force of her aggressor, but she succeeds in wounding him at his Achilles’ heel, his manhood. For someone like him to be refused by a woman, a creature of the lower species, is tantamount to losing his manhood, which must be restored at all costs. That is why he kidnaps her repeatedly. At the end, his death by water is a kind of relief. Water cleanses all sins.

For a large part of the film, Fatma is literally tied to Osman with a rope and dragged up and down the slopes, but Erksan’s master narrative saves this motif from becoming monotonous or even ridiculous. The rope becomes a symbol of men’s sovereignty over women for centuries, especially in the rural milieu, the paradisiacal landscape of arid mountains and gushing rivers alluding to the Garden of Eden. The woman, who constantly tries to cut this rope, is freed only when the man dies and then she cannot stand living alone.

From an artistic point of view, the film is one of the masterpieces of Turkish cinema. The minimalist narrative works in repetitions; the characters of the two protagonists who are both loners in an indifferent world are developed meticulously and with special concern for human psychology; societal dynamics are sharp; and the characters that are offsprings of such a society very accurately drawn. The photo­graphy and the camera angles are beyond reproach. However, the film’s graphic display of male brute power is controversial. While many consider Kuyu as an important representative of the cinema of resistance and argue that Erksan has brought a special sensitivity to the situation of women in Turkey, the feminists condemn it as the sexual fantasies of a macho man. Erksan claims that the film takes its inspiration from the message in An-Nisa, Sura IV— ayet (verse) 19 of the Koran, which states that it is not lawful for men to possess women by force. They should consort with them in kindness because if they hate them, they hate a thing wherein Allah has placed much good – Gönül Dönmez-Colin

Cast and Production Credits

Year - 1968, Genre – Crime, Country -Turkey, Language – Turkish, Producer(s) - N/A, Director – Metin Erksan, Cast - N/A