Waiting for the Clouds-Bulutlari Clerk (2004)

Directed by: Yesim Ustaoglu | 87 minutes | drama | Actors: Rüchan Caliskur, Ridvan Yagci, Ismail Baysan, Dimitrios Kampiridis, Feride Karaman, Suna Selen, Oktar Durukan, Jannis Georgiadis, Irene Tachmatzidou, Damoklia Mustakidou, Fatma Parlagi

An old, traumatized woman in a remote mountain village spends a movie trying to come to terms with her past. That does not result in a movie full of adrenaline rushes. ‘Waiting for the Clouds’ has therefore become a very slow film. However, the story is told with a sense of detail and great integrity.

A strong point of the film is the interweaving of a personal history with a historical tragedy. Director Yesim Ustaoglu exposes the inhumanity of history by interpreting at a micro level the story of the flight of a number of Greek villages from the Ottoman army. Apparently Ayshe seems totally integrated into the life of the village and its inhabitants, but as the film progresses it becomes clear that in many ways she has always remained an outsider. The customs, rituals and family and village connections do not apply to her as they do to the native population.

Ayshe’s history also makes her not build up family life as usual. Apart from her adopted family and neighbor Mehmet, who, like her, does not quite fit within the conventions of the community, she has no more than superficial contact with her fellow villagers. Her sister’s death and the arrival of an outsider are necessary to get her moving and inducing her to try to come to terms with her past at this late stage in her life.

Ustaoglu makes an extreme appeal to the patience of her audience with ‘Waiting for the Clouds’. Very little happens. The protagonist barely develops. The only changes in the film are the death of her adopted sister and the contact she gradually seeks with the outside world. The story does offer an oppressive insight into a closed Turkish community of the new Turkish Republic in the 1970s. Family is most important in this society and the state tries to enforce its place through indoctrination in the schools. A cramped environment for a woman with a secret with no family in a foreign land.

The second storyline is that of Mehmet, which illustrates life in the Turkish community. Dissidents and critical minds are not appreciated in 1970s Turkey. Mehmet struggles to fit into the nationalistic straitjacket at school. He finds his ally in a friend who has a communist father. The two dissenters always seek each other out just outside the village, on the edge of the community. The community condemns, the society is repressive, both in the case of Mehmet and that of Ayshe. Mehmet is an outcast at home and at school due to his inability to fit in. The women who try to help Ayshe do so without respect for the individuality of the woman. The Turkish superstition must protect her Greek soul. This becomes all the more painful as we learn more about Ayshe. Both are connected in the alienation of their environment.

Ayshe’s story is important to tell. The atrocities of the Ottoman army are an underexposed history. The traumas of a generation of Greeks from this area are worth paying attention to. More often than not, history is not learned, but all the attention paid to it can help prevent new mistakes. Ayshe’s story in combination with Mehmet’s second storyline makes it clear that a second mistake in 1970s Turkey is not far to seek. Yesim Ustaoglu has turned a footnote in world history into a beautiful personal portrait. For those who have the patience to sit it out, a reward awaits in the form of a film that you will not soon forget.

Editorial Cinema magazine