Customer Reviews

Bliss

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent movie based on a book by the same name about a beautiful Turkish girl who is found to be "tainted" (she was actually raped)& is placed in a barn with a noose while people, including her hateful stepmother, expect her to hang herself. The girl refuses, and, instead, is sent to Istanbul with her male cousin who is supposed to "finish the job" there. I can't tell you anything else because it would spoil the movie, but there's an interesting relationship that develops between the cousins and a forward-thinking university professor who is disillusioned with his life. Stunning shots of Turkey included.

Bliss is a film about the status and symbolic value of a woman in some Moslem cultures. It is a status so low that they can be murdered by their family if someone rapes them. Meryam is such a woman. After being viciously raped and lacking the money or education to flee her fate, she is forced to follow the son of her father's cousin, Cermal, to Istanbul, where he has been ordered to kill her. This could have easily turned into a bash Islam movie, instead, it becomes a character study of people caught between the modern Islamic world of Istanbul and the brutal rural customs of the remote countryside.

Though Meryam is the central figure in the story and we certainly feel her anguish, the story focuses as much if not more on Cermal. She has already been tested by emotional adversity and forced to break with her culture as the story opens. Cermal's journey is just beginning. The ruse designed to hide the real intention behind the trip is going to visit their relatives in Istanbul. The couple they visit have fled the village and its harsh authoritarian relationship between parent and child. They understand what Cermel is being asked to do, but their view of honor killing is at least tempered by whether the woman was guilty of putting herself "at risk" to be raped. While Cermal is still caught in the throes of his culture's black and white thinking, they can see the gray. What makes the film most interesting is not the plot, it is the growth and struggle of the characters as they are forced to adjust to a new culture that lacks rigid scripts. It is the careful unfolding of these characters and the baring of a humanity, hidden beneath layers of prescribed attitudes and behaviors, that takes this film from good to great.

"Bliss" ("Mutluluk", in Turkish) is the story of a young woman from rural Turkey who is discovered, unconscious and partially disrobed, on the edge of a lake near her village. The movie follows the events subsequent to this discovery. The village is scandalized by the perceived sexual misconduct on the part of this woman and her punishment determines the course of the plot.

Acting was superb, with performances, in turn, heart-wrenching, funny and insightful. Cinematography was very good, showing off the Turkish countryside and the city of Istanbul well.

The DVD delivers audio in Dolby Pro Logic, and the extras are meager.


Note: This DVD employs the original Turkish language audio track, and provides English subtitles. We found the subtitles a bit small, making it challenging to read them on our old, admittedly past-its-prime CRT TV, but completely legible on our plasma set.

I would have missed this amazing film if not for it popping up as a suggested title on a movie rental website to which I subscribe. This movie (in Turkish with English subtitles) had such a profound impact on me that I am going to purchase it and try and get as many of my friends to watch it. The subject matter in "Bliss" or "Mutluluk" (it's Turkish title) is the practice of honor killing. This cruel and inhuman practice is prevalent in Middle Eastern countries, South Asian countries such as Pakistan, and yes, in Turkey. It is commonly practiced in traditional and fundamentalist Muslim societies, where a daughter's dishonor is regarded as one of the worst possible misfortune to befall a family - no matter if the daughter's dishonor was through no fault of her own, e.g. rape, molest, etc. The verdict in such cases is often a death sentence, not upon the perpetrator, but upon the daughter. I have read of young girls being beaten to death, drowned in the family pool, stoned to death, strangled, etc. A good read on this subject, amongst others is [[ASIN:0452283779 Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World, Newly updated].

The movie focuses on 17-year-old Meryem (a brilliant Ozgu Namal) who is found unconscious by the lake shore one morning in a state of dishevelment. Meryem lives in a small village in the Turkish countryside with her father, stepmother, and several other family members. Unable/unwilling to name her attacker, Meryem's father is convinced by a respected and notable village elder, Ali (Mustafa Avkiran) that the only way to put an end to gossip and to restore his family's good name is to have Meryem killed (for of course, the girl is considered at fault, this being a male-dominated society where females are expected to keep silent and remain submissive). The man chosen to carry out the murder (euphemistically referred to as honor killing) is Ali's son Cemal who has just returned from military service in the commando unit.

Cemal (Murat Han)is at first reluctant but is given no choice in the matter and he takes Meryem to Istanbul. Once there, Cemal's brother Yakub who has long since left the village and it's outdated and inhuman practices behind him, cautions Cemal against acting in haste. Cemal however has no choice since he cannot return to his village without having killed Meryem. Well, at the last moment, Cemal has a change of heart and both Cemal and Meryem go on the run. They eventually meet an ex-professor and liberated soul, Irfan Abi (Talat Bulut) who himself is escaping a bad marriage and the pair end up working on his boat as his crew. Unknown to the pair, Ali is now desperate to find his son and bent on seeing Meryem dead.

I loved how the movie captures Meryem's journey from darkness into light. In the capable hands of actress Ozgu Namal, Meryem's character blossoms/matures from a naive young girl, unaccustomed to the sophisticated ways of the world outside her village to a young woman who truly finds a voice and refuses to let her bitter experience scar her forever. Irfan Abi as played by Talat Bunut effectively captures the older, more experienced sophisticate who acts as the pair's mentor whilst struggling to make peace with his own personal demons. Then there's the lead actor Murat Han as the young man Cemal who dares defy his father's wishes and listen to his own heart, as conflicted as that heart may be.

This movie has all the elements of a good human drama - a compelling subject matter (which is never sensationalized, a true credit to the director), romance, and credible, heartfelt acting. Highly recommended!

A beautifully done foreign language film that begins with the cruelties of religious fundamentalism. As the film progresses, we are also shown the emegence of romance, revelations of deep betrayal, photogenic characters and underlying suspense. Much here to recommend. Of additional interest are the many street scenes of modern and rural Turkey revealing a clash of civilizations and conflict between modernity versus tradition.

I really enjoyed this film about a man and woman's journey from a rural village in Turkey to Istanbul, intended for an "honor" killing of this poor young woman, which becomes a journey of self-discovery. Especially fascinating is the contrast between the values and ideas of rural, strict Islamic peoples and those of the educated, urban host of the last part of the film. It's an eye-opener.

This film is totally engrossing, and even with the issue of the treatment of women in the horrific practice of "honor" killings, the story doesn't leave out the better side of human relationships: friendship and love. This makes it very watchable and, in the end, leaves us feeling good, as well as informed.

I can't help wondering if this trip away from the home village to complete the killing is an unlikely occurrence, and without this premise of the journey to another place, the movie could not have happened. But this thought does not take away from this extremely well-done film.

The beautiful scenery shown during the boating trips is stunning as well. Excellent movie!

"Bliss" is the very best new movie I've seen in years, an enthralling, exquisite, moving, important film. Given current trends, I can't imagine a mainstream American film being this brave, this engaging, and this pertinent. If you are a thinking, feeling movie fan, see "Bliss." You won't regret it.

Some reviews make "Bliss" sound like a National Geographic documentary about exotic foreigners, or an essay about honor killing, or a stab at Muslim-Western clashes, or a slide show of exotic Turkish locales. "Bliss" is none of those things. It is a movie-movie, a film that sucked me into its world and made me forget my surroundings; "Bliss" made me love and care about the characters onscreen from its opening shots. I was, at times, on the edge of my seat; I cried; I shouted at the screen; my palms sweat. After the film was over, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I wanted to grab all my movie fan friends and demand that they see it and that we sit up all night talking about it.

That I loved the characters is testimony to how powerful this film is. Cemal (Murat Han), the main character, is a returning Turkish solider who's been off fighting terrorists. (The terrorists in question may be Kurds pressing for an independent Kurdish state, but the film never names them.) Cemal broods much, smiles little, carries a gun, suffers from PTSD, and is plagued by nightmares. He slavishly accepts, from his father, the all-powerful headman of his village, the job of honor killing his distant cousin, Meryem (Ozgu Namal), a naïve village girl who has been raped. Cemal is a genuinely scary guy. He curses at Meryem, denouncing her as a "whore" and a "bitch." He slaps her. In some very tense scenes, he reveals himself quite ready to, and capable of, killing several people. And yet "Bliss" made me love Cemal, care about his fate, and see the world through his eyes. In fact, when Cemal fails at his first attempt to kill Meryem, and squats in shame, I felt sorry for him. That is powerful filmmaking. Murat Han is completely natural in the role. You never catch him acting. He just is Cemal.

Ozgu Namal, as Meryem, gives an equally miraculous performance. Again, I felt, when watching this, as if I were watching real people. I've lived in pre-modern, traditional villages, and Namal and the other actors expertly capture the cringing, downtrodden posture that subservient people assume in the presence of their superiors in the village hierarchy. Men like Cemal cast their eyes down and say "Yes, sir," when ordered around by the village headman; girls like Meryem, with no status whatsoever, cringe at all times, scuttling through life, struggling to assure their continued existence by continuously pleasing those above them - and those above them include everyone. Meryem cringes and looks away and plasters herself to a train seat when handing Cemal a pita bread sandwich she has made for him; he must eat and be satisfied before she can eat. Even when she gets a fish bone stuck in her throat her hands flutter and her eyes grow wide with anxiety as Cemal tries to keep her from choking - ironic given that his job is to kill her. She doesn't want to demand too much. Her body language says, "Don't worry; I'll just choke to death. I don't want to be a bother." Namal conveys the complex inner life of a girl who has been denied any identity or individuality by her crushing, loveless surroundings. In one scene, she talks about her relationship with her grandmother, and it is so poignant only a stonehearted filmgoer could avoid crying.

But Turkey is not just traditional villages; it also has a coast where Western tourists and modernized Turks lounge in bikinis. Cemal and Meryem encounter Irfan (Talat Bulut), a renegade professor cruising the coast in his yacht. Irfan smiles and enjoys life; his hair is snowy white. He is bright opposite to brooding, dark, Cemal. But Irfan's life isn't perfect, either. He doesn't quite know how to fit his modern, sunny mentality into traditional Turkish culture.

All scenes, even lighthearted ones, are shadowed by menace. The law is ironclad: Meryem must be killed by a member of her family. She has been raped; she is "tainted," as Cemal puts it. There is a knife, a gun, a pair of strangling hands, hiding around every corner of every shot, even those on the professor's yacht. You know that no matter how far Meryem gets from her village, she is not going to find safety within the confines of this world, or this movie.

Because this film caused me to care so much about Cemal, Meryem, and Irfan, I struggled with the questions they faced. How can a raped girl survive in a traditional Muslim village? If she escapes her village, where can she make a life for herself? Can she, ever? Can a girl who has been trained to cringe and serve and hide behind her veil ever fit in with Westernized Turkish girls, who, clad only in bikinis, visit Prof. Irfan's yacht? And what about Cemal? Will he always only be a man who responds with frightening rage when asked to set a table because that is "women's work," who feels duty-bound to beat down any woman who questions his absolute, masculine authority? And who is to say which world is better, the village, with its tradition, or the professor's world, where he does seem truly without anchors?

Bliss the movie is based on Bliss, the book by Zulfu Livaneli. This is one of the best adaptations of a book I have ever seen while still being different.

As mentioned in other reviews, the movie is about a girl from a small village in Eastern Turkey who was raped. The leader of the village who is the uncle of the girl convinces her father that the girl is "tainted" and promiscuous and that she must be killed to keep honor in the village. It's obvious that the father does not want this, though his wife who has been a cruel stepmother to the girl does, but his cousin who is the richest man in the village and the head elder insists and he goes along because the girl cannot remember who attacked her (PTSD) and can't defend herself. The uncle orders his youngest son who just got out of his mandatory 2-year military service and who is suffering from PTSD himself to take his cousin to Istanbul to kill her because the murder can't take place near the village or the military which patrols near by would find out and arrest the murderer.

The son Cemal takes the girl Meryem to Istanbul by train to his brother and his wife in Istanbul. The brother who left the small village is estranged from the father and tries to dissuade Cemal from his father's orders. Later when Cemal does try to make Meryem jump from a bridge and she is about to, he finds that he can't let her do it and saves her. Now neither can return back to the village and Meryem is Cemal's responsibility.

The two eventually meet up with a rich professor/writer who has left his wife and rich lifestyle to sail around on a large boat along the Marmaris. He invites the two to work for him and live on his boat and all three learn about themselves from their encounters with each other.

This is where the movie diverges from the book. The book shows viewpoints of each character in different chapters if I remember right. In the movie the uncle sends his goons out to find Cemal to make sure that he killed Meryem and then to bring him back. This doesn't happen in the book. The book is a little more realistic in this and the ending is very different, though still good. Without giving the ending away in the movie, let me just say it is extremely satisfying and happy which I thought was unusual because my husband once told me that Turkish movies usually have sad endings.

I highly recommend this movie. The cinematography is absolutely stunning. Turkey is a gorgeous country and the movie really showcases that. The story is also very good. The acting is superb. You really feel for both Meryem and Cemal and the ending is highly satisfying. The subtitles were a little small, but not too hard to read.

And if you liked the movie, you will also like the book which explains the motivations behind the three main characters. The ending is different but is probably more realistic.

Bliss is a story, and based on a novel, where the theme is honor killing. Although not nearly as frightening as The Stoning of Soraya M, Bliss carries the intensity, fear and suspense. The opening scenes are saddened; Meryem, 17, is raped in the village, and she will not reveal the killer, only indicating saying she does not remember. Traditionally, in Turkey, it is assumed to her fault and in order to stop further gossiping and disgrace upon the family, she is encouraged to kill herself. When that doesn't happen, her father sets out to have her killed.

Bliss demonstrates the strength and conviction of a girl adamantly against Turkish traditions, defiant that she can not and will not kill herself. It is the conflict between the old and the young.

It is her cousin Cemal, who is to take the girl to Istanbul to do the job. From here on, the tension starts mounting, as we fear for the girl who is in the hands of the one to kill her. Their journey is tense, unpredictable, through a beautiful Turkish backdrop. However, as they move on Cemal's feelings have shifted. During their journey, Cemal and Meryem become entangled in the life of a professor whose boat they take refuge. We learn why he is adrift and involved in a marital dispute. Meanwhile, the dramatic action continues as her family remains on the lookout.

Prepare for a shocking twist..... This movie will keep you tuned in and tense.

Note: Presented in Turkish with English subtitles.

Introduction: The 2007 release `Bliss' is a fictional tale of a too often acted out reality. This is not a film geared towards a carefree night of family theater, it deals with the serious matter of honor killing as practiced within some sectors of the Muslim culture. The unfortunate target in this story is an attractive young 17 year old village girl named Meryem played expertly by Ozgu Namal.

Synopsis: Meryem is a victim of rape perpetrated by an assailant known only to her. Because of the inferior status held by women she is obviously the one at fault and is quickly branded as "tainted" and locked away in a room to pray to Allah for forgiveness and hopefully hang herself with the rope so generously provided by her family.

When she refuses to kill herself her Father and a village elder decide to assign a young man, Cemal (Murat Han) to escort her to the city and live with friends to alleviate the family from any further shame. Unknown to Merymem the real reason for her journey is not to find a new home, but to be killed by her traveling companion somewhere along the way.

As the journey progresses Cemal undergoes an internal struggle between his duty to carry out his mission, his cultural beliefs that condone such a horrible deed as honor killing and his feelings for his vulnerable, innocent girl. Will Cemal be able to convince Meryem to trust him and reveal the truth about what happened and if she does will he believe her story and take her to safety? Or, will he adhere to his cultural tradition and kill her whether he believes her or not?

Critique: This is a beautifully produced film. The camera work is superior, the soundtrack haunting and exotic and the storyline solid from beginning to end. I was also impressed with the acting, the cast was believable and fully engaged in the storyline.

In my mind the film is a success if for no other reason than the producer and directors' willingness to deal with such a contemporary and important human rights issue all the while knowing that there would probably be limited audience appeal. What does that say about society-at-large?

However that being said, I would also deem the film an artistic success as well, particularly so due to the performance of Ozgu Namal in the role of Meryem. Not only is her physical appearance enough to keep the viewers eyes focused on the screen, but her ability to establish an emotional connection with the audience, hence the storyline, keeps everyone involved and engaged until the very end. And isn't that what any good movie is supposed to do, engage the audience?