Cinema, Horror and the Wrath of God: Turkish Islam’s Claims in the Kurdish East

Authors : Ali SENGUL

Pages : 11-28

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Publication Date : 2020-12-31

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This article offers an allegorical reading of the Turkish horror film Büyü / Spell insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(Orhan Oguz, 2004);. As the first Turkish horror film that takes Islam at the center of its narrative and the first horror film taking place in the Kurdish East, Büyü shifts the ideology of cinematic East away from social realism and the representation of the region as a space to be modernized in accordance with the Kemalist national modernization process. Unlike the East in social realism where feudalism, Islam and illiteracy were seen as main problems to be dealt with, Büyü’s main concern over the East is its diversion from Islam and the threat the influx of non-Muslims poses to the Turco-Islamic unity the region is shown to enjoy in a remote past. In Büyü, the Kurdish East is represented as the space of horror, death, and sorcery, and Islam is offered to fight the horror. The article studies the film as an early example of popular culture in Turkey where one can trace the national and territorial ideology of the new pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party, which during the early 2000s was in search of hegemony against not only the secularist Turkish political elite but also the Pro-Kurdish political movement in the Kurdish East.
Keywords : horror film, Turkish Cinema, social realism, allegory