THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – NOT TO BE MISSED
It begins with a profession of faith as a programming of the events that constitute the very engine of the story. A man, facing the camera, outlines his relationship with religion. We learn from his mouth that after having served in prison, he found in Islam both a way of reintegrating into society, by renouncing delinquency, and a framework for his personal and social life. This man is Oray, a Turk living with his wife in a small German town. Following a quarrel with her, he pronounces on the phone, under the influence of anger following her will not to speak to her any more, a Koranic incantation, “Talaq”, repeated three times and supposed to signify his desire to repudiate her.
At the center of the group that Ory has joined is an imam more committed to a more rigid observance of the tenets of religion.
Immediately regretting this impulse to the disastrous effects, he tries to pick up the pieces with his wife while seeking advice from an imam who “translates” to him the consequences of his verbal exit: a separation of the spouses two months before the possible reunion. He therefore takes advantage of this spiritual injunction to settle in Cologne for a while with a cousin and reconnect with old friends, for the most part attached to the respect of a certain Muslim morality.
At the center of the group he joined is an imam more committed to a more rigid observance of the tenets of religion. For him, the fact of having pronounced the fatal word three times must forever separate the man from his wife. Perspective painful for the one who, in the meantime, has reconciled with her. Oray, therefore, considers that he must choose between hiding, and hiding from himself, the truth of his incantation or join the conviction expressed during the first minutes of the film and draw a particularly painful consequence.
Refusal of psychology
First feature film by its author, Oray is a sort of melodramatic moral tale featuring the issue of freedom and discipline. If this frees (the man saved from his bad inclinations by Islam), it can alienate just as much (force him to a decision that he refuses). The film thus describes the torments of an individual who locks himself in a prison of which he himself has forged the bars. A man torn by his own convictions. The direction of Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay and the direction of actors encourage both a real empathy towards the main character but also a refusal of psychology which leaves open any possibility of interpreting a dilemma ultimately imaginary.
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