Kartal Yuvasi means Eagle's Nest but a quick look at this movie will clue you in that director Natuk Baytan and writer Tarik Dursun Kakinç are really making their own version of Straw Dogs.
Yet this movie is very much its own movie.
That's because it's filtered through the lens of creators coming from a country quite unlike our own. At the time of filming, the setting of Cyprus was in the middle between a battle between Greece and Turkey with the Turkish Muslims being forced out of their homeland. That's quite a different setting than Wakely. And there is no David Sumner character in this, instead two women, one young and another old.
The closest thing this movie has to Dustin Hoffman's character is Murat, a doctor who is returning home along with his new English fiancee Mary. When he's called away for an emergency, Mary must stay with Murat's mother Makbule, a Muslim woman who the town already distrusts and outright hates. Even worse for them, the very idea that mary would convert from Catholicism for her husband is enough to rile them up into outright sexual assault, a much different reason for the crime than Peckinpah's film.
During the climactic attack on the house, the mother even reveals a Turkish flag under her clothes and plays matching band covers of their national anthem while getting thrown off the steps by men much larger than her. Then the movie juxtaposes this battle with actual footage of Turkish soldiers retaking the town from the Greek army. That's the second weirdest crosscutting in this, as Mary's rape is played against the birth of a baby.
I've debated in my head if Straw Dogs is art or exploitation. This film definitely leans toward the latter, yet is also a political message, which is pretty fascinating.
Yet this movie is very much its own movie.
That's because it's filtered through the lens of creators coming from a country quite unlike our own. At the time of filming, the setting of Cyprus was in the middle between a battle between Greece and Turkey with the Turkish Muslims being forced out of their homeland. That's quite a different setting than Wakely. And there is no David Sumner character in this, instead two women, one young and another old.
The closest thing this movie has to Dustin Hoffman's character is Murat, a doctor who is returning home along with his new English fiancee Mary. When he's called away for an emergency, Mary must stay with Murat's mother Makbule, a Muslim woman who the town already distrusts and outright hates. Even worse for them, the very idea that mary would convert from Catholicism for her husband is enough to rile them up into outright sexual assault, a much different reason for the crime than Peckinpah's film.
During the climactic attack on the house, the mother even reveals a Turkish flag under her clothes and plays matching band covers of their national anthem while getting thrown off the steps by men much larger than her. Then the movie juxtaposes this battle with actual footage of Turkish soldiers retaking the town from the Greek army. That's the second weirdest crosscutting in this, as Mary's rape is played against the birth of a baby.
I've debated in my head if Straw Dogs is art or exploitation. This film definitely leans toward the latter, yet is also a political message, which is pretty fascinating.
