Madhurilata Basu
(Madhurilata teaches Political Science at Gurudas College and can be reached at basu.madhurilata@gmail.com)
Director: Yilmaz Arslan
Cast: Erdal Celik, Nurretin Celik, Xevat Gectan
Running time: 90 mins
‘As moths drawn to the light, many took the road to the
Promised Land’, hoping that, ‘at the end of the tunnel, shines the light of
money…’
The
movie Fratricide (Brudermode; Germany: 2005), tries to capture the
aspirations of migrants in Europe, in this case an unnamed German city, their
struggles at various levels— to have a life, to live with dignity and be
accepted as well as the struggles of competing with other migrants for
assimilation. Yilmaz Arslan's Fratricide,
traces the journey of a young Kurdish shepherd boy, Azad (Erdal Celik), to
Germany, with the help of his elder brother’s (Semo, Nurretin Celik) money, in
order to support their struggling family.
When Azad is all set to leave in a truck full of teenage boys
or young men from nearby villages, all suited up, Azad’s father picks up some
soil and puts it in his shabby coat pocket. At that moment, the words of a fellow
passenger that in a new land one might lose a brother to find another, might seem to be harsh, based on the timing,
but as the film unfolds, it would seem that harsh is another name for the
reality in Azad’s life. On arrival in Germany, Azad stays in some kind of a
refugee shelter. He comes to know that Semo has become a pimp and he, unlike
his brother, sets off to earn his living by shaving beards and trimming the
nose hair of the customers from a neighbourhood hangout. It is at the shelter
that Azad meets Ibo (Xewat Gectan), an orphaned Kurdish boy and forges a
friendship and brotherly attachment towards him.
Azad doesn’t like the person Semo has turned into and
maintains distance. At work, Ibo holds the mirror for him and Azad does a fair
job at shaving beards. Plugging his nostrils to ward off bad smell from his
customers, do tell us about his clientele. The urge to be accepted often
clashes with his commitment towards the struggle for a free Kurdistan. Azad
buying present for a girl he likes for Easter, participating in gatherings by
fellow Kurds to pledge their commitment for a free Kurdistan, his attachment to
Ibo, his relation with Semo leaves him torn and confused. After all, the
journey had turned him into a new man and he doesn’t quite realise that he had
left much of himself behind. That is perhaps true for all the refugees or
migrants who have embarked on an unending journey, the distant destination
being a ‘better life’.
Arslan’s choice to cast amateurs renders the film a raw touch
to it and the use of grim colours makes it depressing at times. The movie
subtly questions the role of host countries and forces us to take refugees or
migrants not as a homogenous category but as categories with competing
interests. The latter reality strikes us when along with his elder brother and
Ibo, Azad crosses violent paths with two assimilated Turkish brothers Ahmet and
Zeki. They are the relatively ‘richer lot’ and Azad and Ibo, the new ‘others’
in town, face harassment from the Turkish street thugs, who have tattoos,
listen to hip-hop, have access to weapons and who would any day pass as
gangsters in any western movie. Tensions exacerbate when one of the Turks gets
killed accidentally. Survival in an alien land becomes more important for Azad
and Ibo, promises made back home, their identities, all fade away.
At the end, one cannot help but remember the words uttered in
one of the earlier scenes of the film:
‘When they take everything from you, when you have nothing
left except memory…then is the time to be reborn'.
* A note on the subtitles, while the character is named Azad,
curiously, the subtitles refer to him as Asad.
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