‘AUTUMN’ GIVES A FACE AND A VOICE TO HEMSHIN NARRATIVE AT THE MFA
By Andy Turpin
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April 16, 2009
BOSTON, Mass. (A.W.) – On April 5, the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA)
presented the last installment of its 8th Annual Boston Turkish Film
and Music Festival with the U.S. Premiere of Hamshen-Armenian director
Ozcan Alper’s film "Autumn" ("Sonbahar").
The film revolves around Yusuf. Imprisoned for demonstrating against
the Turkish government as a student in the Communist party, he is
released after 10 years after contracting tuberculosis while in prison.
He returns to his kind but sickly mother and whiles away the days
drinking raki with his childhood friend Mikail. As autumn slowly
turns to winter, he begins a romantically platonic relationship with
a Georgian prostitute-in Turkey on a work visa to support her daughter
in Tbilisi.
As it states in the program summary, "Beyond the personal tragedy
of a man who has nothing to look forward to, there lurks the bitter
deception of a shattered socialist dream."
Alper was born in 1975 in the small town of Artvin in northeastern
Turkey. He studied physics at Istanbul University and later transferred
his degree to the history of science at the same university. In
the meantime, he grew interested in cinema and started to work in
alternative cinema groups. In 1999, he started his professional career
in filmmaking and worked in several films and TV serials as assistant
director and production staff.
His first short film, "Momi" ("Grandmother") received several awards,
and was the first film ever shot in the Hemshin language. "Autumn"
is Alper’s first feature film and was supported by the Turkish
Cultural Ministry. Alper also writes film critiques in "Yeni Film,"
a well-known cinema magazine in Turkey.
Melancholy is the key word to describe "Autumn," but wise persons
know that melancholy and sadness are not the same things. "Autumn"
is beautiful in its transformation and ascendance, even when that
ascendance is the stark realization of one’s own mortality. Like
falling asleep in the snow, "Autumn" is beautiful and numbing in its
grace with a yearning for life and compassion like roses in winter.
Like Alexander Sokurov’s "Russian Ark" (2002) or Harutyun Khachatryan’s
"Return of the Poet" (2005), Alper’s "Autumn" stands as a celluloid
khatchkar (Armenian cross-stone) to the beauty and long shadows of
the collective Armenian tale and is not to be missed, lest another
Armenian monument sink into oblivion in Turkey.