There
is no crime of such enormity society cannot be manipulated into forgetting.
Just ask Hasret. The news editor ought to know, but she too has also forgotten,
even though the outrage in question hit tragically close to home. However, her subconscious
has been nagging her, perhaps alarmed the sins of the past are being repeated
with impunity by an Orwellian government and its complicit media allies in Ceylan
Özgün Özçelik’s Inflame (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 SXSW.
Hasret
lives in a Turkey just a tad bit more dystopian than it currently is now. Call
it near future by four or six months. She works as an editor at the Turkish
CNN, where she has a front row seat to view media manipulation, in favor of the
autocratic government’s official party line. It has taken a toll on her soul
and her conscience, but there is something disturbing her at an even deeper
level. For weeks, she has troubled by visions of her late folk musician parents—at
least she hopes they are just waking dreams or the like. Regardless, they have
led Hasret to question the official report of their deaths in 1993, supposedly
due to an auto accident.
As
the current climate becomes more repressive, Hasret’s own body and mind start to
rebel. She starts cutting social ties, confining herself to her parents’ flat
in an old quarter of Istanbul scheduled for demolition. She becomes prime proof
of the cynical adage: “just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t
out to get you.” Of course, that puts she in an enormously dangerous position.
Those
who really know their Turkish history will pick up on the significance of the
year 1993 and Hasret’s parents trip to a cultural festival in Sivas. Those who
do not, can thank the Erdogan regime and their allies for banishing the 1993
mass murder of thirty-five artists and musicians down the national memory hole.
During the very real historical incident, thirty-five artists and musicians
were burned death in their hotel by a mob of intolerant Islamists. According to
the film’s closing titles, a number of the attorneys for the accused
arsonist-murderers now hold high-ranking political positions, which should not
surprise anyone who has been paying a thimble-full of attention to the
regressing nation.
Inflame is an important
film that took considerable guts to make, but it makes few stylistic
concessions to reach a wider mass audience. The parallels with Polanski’s Repulsion need little explanation, but
the scope of Inflame is much wider
and its themes are far more macro.
Algi
Eke’s portrayal of Hasret’s descent into madness is absolutely harrowing. She
carries every agitated second of the film. Frankly, most of the rest of the
cast hardly gets a chance to register, but there is something unsettling about Özgür
Çevik’s turn as her ostensive platonic friend Mehmet. Although we are not given
any explicit reason to distrust him, he still manages to set off all our alarm
bells.
