A boy, forced to stay with his inmate mother in prison, finds a place of imaginative solace in a young political prisoner, as this Turkish classic subverts the ‘prison movie’ by focusing on the communal spirit of women who find a ‘home’ within the four walls.
Review #2,992
Dir. Tunc Basaran
1989 | Turkey | Drama | 90min | 1.33:1 | Turkish
Not rated – likely to be PG
Cast: Nur Surer, Ozan Bilen, Fusun Demirel, Guzin Ozipek, Guzin Ozyagcılar
Plot: Sent to prison along with his mother after her drug conviction, a young boy develops a warm, tender relationship with a political prisoner.
Awards: –
Distributor: MUBI
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Prison Life; Women in Prison; Human Connection
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: MUBI
Spoilers: No
MUBI, my favourite world cinema streaming platform, presents a new restoration of this endearing if bittersweet Turkish classic, shot mostly from the perspective of a young boy in prison. He is behind bars because his father has disappeared, and his mother is in prison due to a drug conviction.
As days turn into weeks and months, Baris finds the four walls his only home, and in Inci, a young woman imprisoned for political reasons, a place of imaginative solace. Inci draws a kite on the ground with chalk and asks Baris to think of it as a bird that will fly away someday.
So, the kite becomes a symbol of hope, and like films that deal with young kids and an ‘object’ that they obsess over (the 1974 Iranian film, Harmonica; or The Red Balloon, a famous French Oscar-winning short from 1956, comes to my mind), Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite draws us into the world of its tiny protagonist and stays there.
Baris ought to be playing with children his age, but staying together with his Mom, and dozens of female inmates young and old, teaches him a thing or two about caring for one another, though he sometimes pisses the adults off with his inquisitive questions and odd tantrum.
“Why did they put him in the cage?”
Inci is more of a mother to him than Baris’ own, and it is this close relationship between them that director Tunc Basaran spends time developing, forming the film’s emotional core.
The greatest prison movies tend to centre on male inmates who endeavour with the most elaborate escape plan; here in Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite, we have the complete opposite.
The setting is an interesting one—the women are allowed to function communally, and at times, it doesn’t feel like a prison at all. Yet, they are reminded by the warden to behave themselves once in a while.
Most, if not all, have personal grievances towards the men (or larger political society) that conspired to put them behind bars. Thus, despite being a work of gentle and lyrical compassion, there is a sense of quiet resistance found in the existence of these women.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 