Dear Readers,
I’m finding I’m quite busy, despite the lockdown, but I have managed to see some new films (well – new for me), mostly based on recommendations.
One of these particularly irked me, so I’d like to share my reflections on it and ask for your insight.
This film, a Turkish production, focuses on a lady, Efsun, who has just turned 30 and is single. As her cousin, 10 years her junior, announces her engagement, the main character decides it’s high time she found a husband, and a whole army of female friends and relatives volunteer to support her in her quest of the happy ever after.
On the advice of her relatives, Efsun gets to revamp her image, which includes a shopping trip, a visit to the nail parlour, where she is rather perplexed by the Do you push your cuticles back? question (don’t blame her), a visit to the hairdresser, you name it. Having thus enhanced her looks, she’s husband-hunting ready. A night on the town is called for. Destiny would have it that she’d meet an old crush of hers, the handsome Sinan, in a loud nightclub. The spark from years ago is re-ignited, despite the unfortunate fact that, having overdone it with the cocktails, Efsun throws up all over his immaculate suit and shoes. (Nota bene: All of this reminds me of a definition of the best night out, frequently voiced by colleagues back when I lived in the UK. Definition: The best night out is the one you can’t remember and you try to reconstruct by what people tell you the day after. Can’t say I agree.)
The attraction between Efsun and Sinan is obvious. But, hey, she can’t make it too easy for him, her relatives and friends rush to advise her. Don’t answer his calls right away, or you’ll seem too keen. Say you’re busy if he invites you out, even when all you’re busy with is thinking how much you’d like to spend that time with him. A man likes a bird on the wire a lot more than he likes a bird in his hand. Make yourself too available and he’ll instantly lose interest and move on to a more mysterious woman.
Efsun is advised to act unhappy even when she’s perfectly happy; to make a mountain out of a molehill, to show an attitude, lest poor Sinan might think she actually likes him, which, incidentally, couldn’t be more obvious. She is to take the smallest thing and turn it into a bag of problems, which then Sinan is to spend several hours trying to solve to her satisfaction. His efforts might, in the end, yield a result, but not before an evening in a fine dining restaurant is ruined due to her striking an attitude, apparently a key factor for retaining the interest of a man.
That’s where I stopped watching. Perhaps the rest of the film completely disproves the idea that a man must be manipulated into a relationship; I don’t know.
Isn’t the idea of behaving this way dishonest and misleading to its very core? I wonder how many women watch a film like this and decide they have to abide by these ridiculous “rules”. I also can’t help wondering whether men, having seen the film, find themselves more confused than ever as far as dating is concerned. How are they to approach a woman, with the awareness that there might be a hell of a lot of acting going underneath the surface?
Wouldn’t it be just so much easier not to play games? If the aim of having a partner is companionship (with, of course, responsibilities of various kind not much further down the road), why should one resort to these strategies? How is one to distinguish whether people are genuine, or whether it’s all an act?
Perhaps the rest of the film has all the answers…
Purple Travel Path 