Not Knowing (Turkey)
Not Knowing/Bilmemek
I was left confused by this sad movie. And saddened by the lost opportunities so visible in this well-directed, well-shot, and tremendously well-acted film made in the service of a really retrograde, muddled, and (perhaps unintentionally) harmful message. Or perhaps the issue here is one of audience. This film only works if it’s limited to straight audiences. I think? It’s just a very confusing and muddled film. Is it an anti-gay film? Is it an anti-bullying film? The screenplay can’t make up its mind.
The basics: Not Knowing is a Turkish film by Leyla Yilmaz about a young high school student Umut (Emir Ozden). He’s in his last year of school, stressed out about taking his final exams, and oh yeah, he’s a gifted water polo player with a chance at an athletic scholarship that would allow him to study abroad. He seems good natured and likable. One day I’ll rescuing a kite from the branches of a tall tree, he happens to witness some students beating up another kid. He also come, jumps down the tree and comes to the kids rescue. Brushes him off and sent him away. Little does he know is nemesis, Berk, was nearby and snapped a picture with his phone camera of Umut helping the kid out that could be misconstrued as a tender moment between the two. If this sounds like a stretch, it is. We’re not sure why Berk I said his sights on Umut. He just has. What proceeds is a campaign intimating and then directly accusing Umut of being a homosexual. The bully manages to convince all of Umut’s teammates, boys he’s grown up with, who have known him most of his life, that he’s gay. When they demand that Umut refute the charges, he refuses again and again to deny them one way or the other. On a matter of principle. To be absolutely clear, there is nothing in this film that intimates that he is gay. There’s no longing gazes, no furtive online exploration, no questions to authority figures, there is absolutely no evidence that Umut is gay. He hasn’t been out with girls and that’s enough. Although from what we see his life is pretty much spent at home or at water Polo practice. We as viewers are given a lot of underwater photography of swimming water polo practices. But none of this is ever framed to give evidence of Umut’s sexuality. But again there is no other evidence of him struggling with his sexuality. He’s just a kid trying to pass his final exams and do well at an upcoming water polo tournament so he can get a college scholarships to go abroad.
There are a few other plot lines here involving the Umut’s mother and father, their own tensions at work, with a new boss, a potential adulterous love interest, an inheritance. But these threads go nowhere and are either there to pad the runtime or perhaps the hook that secured the participation of these two clearly gifted actors in a story that is centrally about Umut. They are largely there to explain the stress and tension in the household that erupts when things come to a head.
The truth is I couldn’t help but think of this as the 70s and 80s-era after school special.
Umut finally disappears and I won’t give it all away except to say it doesn’t come to a good end. And I’m left thinking of Vito Russo’s writings and how this fits into the old “the wages of Gayness is death, or misery” trope that was once more prevalent. But here it is again. Given the repression against LGBT communities in Turkey, it feels like a miracle this was even made, and perhaps the half-hearted commitment here is what sealed its approval. Maybe this is good as it gets.
Cause I’m still not convinced this is about gay sexuality at all. So much of this run time is spent on the father and mother you are suspiciously very well written characters with fully fledged out side stories. One could easily read the moral of the story to be that the very existence or utterance of gayness can be the source of a family’s downfall. Again, I think this is an unintentional message, but it is supported by what’s seen. There are no gay characters in this film. Certainly not Umut. Not from what we’ve been given.
Ultimately I can’t recommend this film. It’s beautifully acted, and certainly if one wants to visit contemporary Turkey, or see what a middle class household is like in Turkey, or what high school water polo practice is like in Turkey, this might be your jam. But barring that, you should avoid this mishmash of a movie.
