Mustang (Deniz Gamze Erguven, 2015): Turkey, France, Qatar, Germany

Reviewed by Omar Gomez. Viewed at the AFI Festival 2015.

This film is a revelation of the youth to unfairness and corruption of their hapiness. Is the life of five sisters, Lale (Günes Sensoy), Nur (Doga Zeynep Doguslu), Ece (Elit Iscan), Selma (Tugba Sunguroglu), and Sonay (Ilayda Akdogan), living in a Turkish home with their family. The sisters are morphed in the film into this cluster of inseparable girls, they are rarely away from each other. They are essentially trying to live a life away from pain and indifference, their family thinks otherwise. The girls end up corrupted from their happiness by the enforced religious beliefs of the family and make the girls, one by one, as they grow older, marry men made to think that they are right for them against their will. When these series of events keep occurring, they use their clever ways to evade all the negativity and corruption. Though frustration, based on a series of unfortunate events, makes the sisters nearly collapsed and give up, the story starts to manifest the bravery, power, and will figured by the younger of all five sisters, Lale. This gives the film an empowering message to society, there’s many different views across the world, this film should be watched to have a better perspective of them.