Sibel, Boston Turkish Film Festival

March 21–April 7, 2019
At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, mfa.org

Filmed in Turkey’s beautiful, fresh-air mountains high above the Black Sea, the film Sibel uses the whistled language of Kuşköy, also known as “Village of the Birds.” The protagonist Sibel (Damla Sönmez) is a mute young woman and the elder daughter of the town’s leader Emin (Emin Gürsoy). She communicates with family and community through the ancient whistling language of the region. Even though everyone else in the village also whistles this language (it’s especially useful when working in the tea fields), they treat Sibel as an outcast because of her muteness that renders her unmarriageable. Her peers, including her younger sister Fatma (Elit Işcan), ridicule her and refuse to allow her to participate in their schoolmate Çiçek’s engagement celebration.

Besides capturing Kuşköy’s breathtaking scenery and cultural history, Sibel tells both a fairy tale and a contemporary story. Sibel, a veritable “Diana of the woods,” hunts a never-seen wolf that plagues the village, apparently for generations. Sibel looks and acts like the mythical heroes who pursue evil dragons. During her forest forages, her eyes are wild and her ears fine-tuned for prey. Sometimes she checks in on old and crazy Narin, who lives in a mountain hut. During each visit, Narin laments the loss of her teenage sweetheart, Fuat, who disappeared half-a-century before, “but is sure to be back soon.” Narin represents Sibel’s fate as an unmarriageable pariah.

Sibel collects bones, believing they belong to the wolf. She hopes that one day she can prove the wolf is dead by presenting its complete skeleton to the villagers, thereby gaining their respect. We later learn that the bones are probably Fuat’s, and that he was killed in front of Narin for their illicit relationship with her. This information explains her insanity.

One day, Sibel’s deep pit to trap the wolf captures a handsome young fugitive. His name is Ali (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil) and he’s badly wounded. Sibel drags him to her hunting shack, and in the days that follow she heals his wounds with medicinal plants. Ultimately, they form a close relationship. In the movie’s “contemporary story,” the government and media frame Ali as a terrorist on the loose, but in reality, as he whistles to Sibel, he’s a conscientious objector being hunted down by the authorities. Eventually the pair is discovered, and Ali vanishes to a fate we never learn, a possible shortcoming of the film.

The contemporary side of the movie also involves village traditions, in particular the ones that relate to women being ruled by men. Because of Sibel’s unauthorized relationship with Ali in the mountain hideout, her sister Fatma’s engagement is called off. The groom-to-be’s family refuses to be associated with such disgrace. Sibel then demonstrates her courage by walking through the village with her sister. Her head is held high and her huntress eyes are defiant. She sees Çiçek standing in the tea fields watching the despised sisters pass by. Their eyes meet in a moment of woman-to-woman recognition. Çiçek, now the wife of a man she never chose and probably abhors, makes a movement with her mouth that sends a message of approval and envy to Sibel: It’s better to be independent and a pariah than an enslaved woman.

Some years ago, Sibel’s directors visited Kuşköy, and their fascination for the local whistling language led to creating the movie. This “bird language” uses Turkish syllables expressed as piercing tones. The directors’ sought out Damla Sönmez for Sibel’s role, and inspired by the story, the actress devoted herself to learning the whistling language. She spent time with the villagers and later with a trainer. What she whistles in the film is exactly what the subtitles say. Her vivid performance fulfills perfectly Sibel’s folkloric persona. As a contemporary story, the film captures a place in the world that’s caught between an obsolete and unjust social order and the more advanced democracies of today, however flawed.

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