Realism as a Tool to Develop Authenticity: Orientalism in Mustang

Abstract

This study analyzes Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s 2015 film Mustang in terms of the ways in which the film reconstructs orientalist imagery with its narrative, camerawork and editing. Mustang was well received in the western mainstream media. It was praised for being a feminist film with a female point of view that draws attention to the oppression of women in Turkey. Yet, it’s reception was quite different in Turkey. This study explores film’s reception in the western media, the rhetoric of Ergüven on the realism aspect of the film and demonstrates the similarities between Ergüven’s compositions and 19th century Orientalist paintings that depict the image of the odalisque. Its methodology is textual and discourse analysis. The theoretical framework regarding Orientalism is based on Edward Said’s canonic work, Orientalism and Linda Nochlin’s influential essay, The Imaginary Orient.