Director: Emin Alper (Turkey, France, Germany, Netherlands, Greece, Croatia). Year of Release: 2022
Yaniklar, Anatolia. The top of a massive sinkhole. A man and woman stand from the edge surveying the damage. The man is Emre, who has just been arrived from Ankara, and has been appointed as public prosecutor. The woman is local judge Zeynep. Emre is dressed smartly, a breath of fresh air who is about to clean up the remote town. The question is, whether Yaniklar really wants to be cleaned up, especially by someone as clean cut as Emre.
As Emre arrives in the city, locals are chasing a wild boar to its death. Vans are rushing through the streets from which people fire their guns into the air. The boar will be killed and slaughtered and dragged through the streets, leaving a streak of blood in its wake. We are encouraged to contrast Emre’s civility with the locals’ barbarous blood lust. This is not unproblematic when dealing with a Western audience, which is used to viewing Turks and Arabs as being a little barbaric.
It’s election season and the main voting issue is the drought. The sink hole which we see in the opening scene is one of many, and rats are starting to roam the streets. Although Yaniklar is a modern city, its inhabitants can only provide themselves water through plastic jerry cans. Incumbent mayor Selim’s promises of lots more water against the will of Big Government wins him a lot of populist support. Villagers march through the streets chanting his name.
Emre’s first case is to solve a case of alleged rape against a local Romany girl Peknez. It is assumed that Perknez has mental difficulties, though it’s not clear this is real or just the result of common assumptions about Romany women. Emre was actually present at the scene of the incident, but he had drunk so much raki that he is an unreliable witness to his own case. The main suspects are connected a little too closely to Selim, and Emre ends up being accused of the crime himself-
Emre sticks up an alliance with local radical journalist Murat. It doesn’t matter whether either or both of Emre and Murat are gay, and whether their relationship goes beyond business. The film doesn’t give us enough evidence to make a decision either way. What is important is that right wing politicians know how to whip up prejudice to marginalise their political enemies, and it’s not long before a lynch mob is assembling outside Emre’s house.
Burning Days is essentially a modern-day Western, with Emre as the Gary Cooper character who has come from outside to clean up a lawless town. Like many Cooper Westerns – often directed by the right winger John Ford – the politics are ambiguous. Emre is clearly a force for good, but he is acting in opposition to most people in town, who feel that they benefit from Selim’s promise of water. Emre is an élitist acting on behalf of the mass of people for what he sees as their own good.
In probably my favourite ever book on film: “Seeing is Believing: Or how Hollywood taught us to stop worrying and love the 50s”, Peter Biskind talks a lot about Westerns. According to Biskind, there are essentially 4 types of Cold War films – separated into left wing and right wing on the one hand, and radical and conservative on the other. Under Biskind’s schema, Burning Days is a left-wing conservative film. it wants change but only sees this as possible through authority figures.
Burning Days’ political history makes us want to root for it. After funding the film, Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism withdrew support, demanding that all funding money be returned with interest. Islamist paper Yeni Akit denounced the film as being “LGBT propaganda” which insulted president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In response, critic Cagin Tas said: “The government in power is not used to being criticized and punishes those who do.”
Burning Day is co-produced by Cigdem Mater, who was sentenced to 18 years following allegations that she masterminded the Gezi Park protests in 2013. After the Burning Day won the Best Film award at Turkey’s Golden Orange film festival, director Emin Alper mentioned the Gezi Park protests in his acceptance speech. It is not worth considering whether this film is a force for good. Of course it is.
A more relevant question is: how effective is it in its challenge against Erdogan’s authoritarianism? Tonight’s showing was part of an EU prize. We were issued tickets by people in yellow and white t-shirts, and the woman introducing the film explained how it was an expression of “our collective values”. But which values are these? Of the EU’s racist Frontex policy? Of the racist governments of Hungary, Poland and Italy? Of the EU’s deal with Turkey to prevent refugees from entering Europe?
Burning Days is an indictment of far right populism, but it is also – possibly despite itself – an indictment of the inadequate liberal response which allows this populism to take hold. The distaste for working-class people demonstrating in the streets seems to be based less on their homophobic demands than on the idea that is not how “we” do politics. The ultimate politics of Burning Days are to tell the discontent masses to calm down and wait for a technocrat in a sharp suit.
I realise that this review has been more about the way in which Burning Days has been received than in the film itself. This is only partly because of how interesting the reception has been. It is also because the character of Emre is such a white bread good guy that the film gets boring at times and starts to drag. You find yourself willing Emre to succeed at the same time as checking your watch and wondering if it will be over soon. It is a film which embodies “worthy but dull”.
There are worse things to be.
CinePhil 