The Vagueness of Ideology and the State in the Films of Zeki Demirkubuz: Ideas Regarding the Deliberate Neglect of Two Dominant Motifs...

In the movies of Zeki

Demirkubuz, who is one of the significant representatives of independent cinema

in Turkey, we can see an attitude towards the deliberate neglect of certain

events and situations related to the phenomenon of ideology and the

representation of the state although they do not visibly include political and

ideological references. This director draws attention to the general

characteristics of the sociopolitical climate of the period in which he has

lived, especially with images of prisons, schools, or housing estates, through

elements and motifs that evoke alienation and insecurity, as well as the

difficulties of taking action in terms of characters and the controlling

influence of an unknown, transcendent power that drives people to marked

inaction. The between-the-lines meanings or the sub-texts of his movies, in

which ideological phenomena are not directly reflected, function as tools of

the established order that cripples individual existence. Almost all of the

characters are lonely, alienated, and insecure, having lost their political

impulses and urges. In other words, they are people who have succumbed to the

dominant cultural and political status quo and have no dealings with the

system. The functioning of institutions and organizations reminiscent of the

state and its ideological influences in general is almost never reflected on

the screen, and when it is rarely reflected, it is quite indirect, obscure, and

ambiguous, depicted as an area of lifelessness, emotional poverty, and

spiritlessness. In this article, we present some clues to the invisible and

uncertain functioning of the state and ideological phenomena in general and its

possible causes through the images and metaphors in the movies of Demirkubuz,

primarily using the content analysis method. It is concluded that, in

Demirkubuz’s movies, the state and ideological tendencies in general are

uncertain, and the main reason for this is the low level of awareness of the

characters about social reality. Therefore, their existential concerns precede

the rules that govern the social world. <o:p></o:p>