This 1989 film by Turkish director Tunç Basaran is a heartfelt and moving work that also carries a sense of urgency and energy. The cast engages the audience with a raw, immediate presence, reminiscent of a live theater performance. However, the standout performance comes from five-year-old Ozan Bilen, who plays Baris, a curious little boy sent to a women’s prison with his mother, Fatma (Füsun Demirel), following Turkey’s military coup in 1980.
Fatma, convicted of drug smuggling, is weary and resentful, leaving little room for Baris, who roams the dilapidated corridors and explores the bathrooms and dormitory cells. He develops a touching bond with Inci (Nür Surer), a political prisoner whose own isolation is poignantly reflected in her nurturing relationship with this fragile child. The story unfolds through flashbacks as Inci, now free, gazes over the hills of Ankara, recalling her promise to Baris that her spirit would soar above the prison like a kite.
In the prison, the politicals mix freely with what in Ireland might be called ODCs or Ordinary Decent Criminals, although it’s the state authorities who look indecent; the male governor is pompous and tyrannical, with a Stalinesque or Stasi-like habit of making a subordinate do something, getting a second subordinate to check that the first subordinate is doing it and then a third subordinate to ensure the second is doing the checking. Innocent Baris learns how to say words he hears from the grownups like “communist” and “slander”, has a ringside seat at ferocious arguments and brawls but also has life-changing experiences in jail, such as circumcision.
This is a film which in some ways could be put alongside Empire of the Sun, another story about a child’s paradoxically liberating experience of imprisonment, yet there is real heartbreak in Inci leaving Baris behind in jail.