Bliss

“This consistently gripping, visually intoxicating film stands as a landmark of contemporary Turkish cinema.” — Stephen Holden, The New York Times

“The lake is still. … The body of a young woman lies on its bank. Her name is Meryem and though it turns out that she is alive, that life is of little use to her anymore, for the sheepherder’s daughter is the victim of an “honor crime”; her chastity lost brutally, her sentence in the small Turkish village of her birth … is death.” — Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

When the young woman refuses to take her own life, a cousin, Cemel, is called back from the army to take her to Istanbul to dispose of her. The trip transforms both cousins. Cemel must kill Meryem or defy his father’s wishes — a sin just as unforgivable as Meryem’s. But can he take the life of a girl he suspects is innocent? Meryem is transformed by encounters with women with a more modern perspective. Overwhelmed, neither Meryem nor Cemel knows what to do. In time they seek refuge on a luxury yacht with a freethinking professor living with his own demons.

“Wonderful storytelling. … From the lyrical opening shot of a mountain’s reflection piercing the sea to the closing portrait of open air, director Abdullah Oguz’s narrative is just as crystalline as the Aegean Sea he opulently photographs. Bliss easily could have been an astoundingly depressing and hopeless tale of Muslim oppression … but after he establishes the old-world order that the leads are escaping, he never looks back.” — Justin Strout, Orlando Weekly

In Turkish, with English subtitles. Running time: 105 minutes.

On the Web:

www.hmbfilm.org