Written by Deniz Gamze Ergüven and Alice Winocour
Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven
France/Turkey/Germany 2015
97 minutes
Our last movie was Run Lola Run - the breathless tale of a resourceful and gutsy young woman and her efforts to rescue her hapless boyfriend when a drug deal goes wrong. Mustang features not one but five feisty Turkish sisters imprisoned in their own house. They begin the film as carefree and experimental teenagers making their way noisily into the adult world. But their actions inflame their conservative family and when their despotic uncle decides he wants them married off they turn out to have very different ideas.
French/Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven based this exhilarating and at times gruelling debut film on her own early life. She gets great performances from the young cast and manages to make the film at once funny, shocking and rebellious in spirit.
Mustang avoids directly commenting on Turkey's gradual retreat from modern secularism into a medieval religious state - in some ways it has more in common with Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides than anything else. The girls' casual intimacy is beautifully depicted as they seek support and gather certainty from each other.
Listen out for the music in this movie - forming a subtle and understated accompaniment to the action and mood. It is composed by Warren Ellis, a member of The Bad Seeds and frequent collaborator with Nick Cave on a number of film scores including The Proposition and The Road.
Mustang's director is one of a growing number of young female directors blazing a trail in what has until now been a male-dominated industry. On the basis of this accomplished and confident picture we can expect great things to come...
