Vision Representation and Cinema

Vision, Representation and Cinema

Discuss the representation of the province in Nuri Bilge Ceylas' Clouds of May in relation to modernity.

The film Clouds of May depicts a clash of two worlds: a more traditional world, and the world of modernity. The film reveals the tensions between the old and the new, and also the real and the unreal. It depicts the attempts of an urban filmmaker named Muzaffer to create a movie about his experiences growing up in the provinces. He goes back to his old town to recruit 'real' actors and get a feel for the 'real' life he wants to play on screen. Although when he was actually living in a backwater he despised it, with an artist's perspective he wishes to create 'high art' from the provincial, a common response of the estranged, urbanized artist.

Modernity has often been characterized by the tension it exhibits between the pastoral and the urban, between the natural and the unnatural. In the viewer of Muzaffer, he wishes to convey 'natural' life through his art. But the production of that natural life is highly constructed and engineered. The tenor of the film can be called 'postmodern' to some degree, as it is as much about Muzaffer's perspective on his past life as it is upon what is 'real.'

The disruption of the filmmaker's perspective introduced into the province, changes the small town -- when something is translated into art, it is irrevocably altered. For example, when Muzaffer arrives in the town, he hires a factory worker to help him get to know the locals. Having failed his university exam, Saffet is unhappy with the life Muzaffer is seeking to idealize. Just as Muzaffer seeks to create a 'real' fictional portrait of his former home, Saffet creates a fantasy based on the movies. Only Saffet's dream is of the future, not the past. He quits his job, hoping for a permanent position in films.

The characters seem not to know when reality and fiction begin and end, but neither does the audience at all times. Muzaffer decides to use his own parents in the film -- played by his own parents -- further blurring the distinction reality and art. The blending of real life and fiction, between filmmaker and reality is thus constantly challenged by the structure of the film. The film pokes fun at Muzaffer's limited perspective of his heritage, even while it exposes the foibles of the countryside. Yet it is Muzaffer who is also the 'real' director about a film that purports to relate his life.

Two personas are created, in effect -- the filmmaker and the character on film. Muzaffer the character is rather naive about the aspirations of characters like Saffet to break out of the confining restrictions of their provincial lives. He also judges residents of the village to not be accurate representations of village life, such as when one inhabitant 'fails' a screen test. But the true filmmaker Muzaffer is the artist who is crafting the irony inherent in the tale of a film 'about' making a film.