Is it possible to find and draw out the sweetness evoked by the film's title from anguish? This is the resolution of Kadir (Artun Can Salman/ Okan Yalabik), in Berkun Oya's Turkish-language tragi-drama.
Kadir grew up with his elder sister, Saliha (Çağla Naz Kargi/ Ayça Bingöl), younger brother, Yusuf (Ali Buğra Biyikçi/ Fatih Artman), and proxy brother, Cemil (?/Olgun Şimşek), in rural 70s Turkey. To mum Havva's (Funda Eryiğit/Nur Sürer) upset, their mercurial dad, Bekir (Yilmaz Erdoğan), is abusive - and particularly so towards Kadir. Generally healthy Bekir unexpectedly and suddenly becomes 'sick as a dog', and, following his passing, Havva relocates to the city, with Saliha, Kadir, and Yusuf. Decades later, Kadir, who is now a fully-fledged filmmaker, returns to the family home and recreates painful memories on film, transforming anguish into a thing of beauty. In the company of other family members, however, buried secrets and repressed emotions also resurface.
Vignettes of the family in the house before and after the 40-year interval are intermixed, lending a sense of just how formative the family's early experiences were, even years later. Kadir's trauma manifests in that he is dislocated from himself, and his own turbid feelings, as well as from the world around him - not following closely or processing events even in his immediately family member's lives. Yusuf goes so far as to accuse Kadir of living life through a screen in one heated moment.
References to the siblings's shared childhood are brought up sparingly in Cici, in dark humour, and are ill-received. All the same, Yusuf, Kadir, Saliha, and Cemil have vastly different recollections of their childhood - most significantly, the great sense of relief we can safely assume Kadir felt after Bekir's death can be contrasted with Yusuf's comment that his childhood was 'good' 'til Dad died. Then it ended'.
Allusions to COVID - which acts as a kind of tertiary plot device in the film, with, for example, the fear of pandemic-related workplace layoffs making it financially expedient to sell the family house for Yusuf - are distracting and add an unnecessary layer of complexity to the story, I feel. Indeed, any sense of overriding message in Cici is obfuscated by its myriad of underdeveloped elements, such as Bekir's intense patriotism, his insatiable sexuality, and Yusuf's own private discontent in life. Working at cross-purposes is the sprawling film's absence of any soundtrack, which creates an impression of clarity.
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