TIFF | Yol

Saturday January 28
06:30 PM
Details
Country: Turkey
Year: 1982
Language: English
Runtime: 111 minutes
Rating: 14A
Principal Cast:
Director: Serif Gören
Yilmaz Güney’s masterpiece — a majestic story about five prisoners released for a week-long furlough whose individual odysseys unite to form a grand allegory for the state of modern Turkey — won the Palme d’Or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and became a worldwide cause célèbre.


Notes


"The latest masterpiece from Turkey's leading filmmaker, Yilmaz Güney" (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice). Güney's most celebrated film, directed by proxy from prison (footage was smuggled to Switzerland and edited in Paris), Yol was rapturously received the world over and received countless prizes, including the Palme d'Or and the International Critics Prize at Cannes. (France granted Güney temporary exemption from extradition to attend the awards ceremony, where he had to be accompanied by an entourage of bodyguards to prevent kidnapping or assassination.) Following the fates of five prisoners given one-week furloughs from the island jail of Imrali, Güney fashions their individual, parallel odysseys into an encompassing metaphor for the state of Turkey, where freedom is scant, poverty and oppression rampant. Breaking one of many taboos in the film, Güney includes a Kurdish character who travels home to his village on the Syrian border, and has him speak the hitherto forbidden language of his people. Sweeping in every aspect — music, landscapes, performances — Yol makes most other films look puny by comparison. "It moves the spectator to tears. Greek tragedy is no less sentimental, no less moving" (Jay Scott, The Globe and Mail).


We are pleased to welcome Erju Ackman, film curator and organizer of the Yilmaz Güney retrospective, who will introduce our screening of Yol and place it in the context of Güney's life and career.