Yol - Der Weg

Five prisoners are given permission to visit their homes, and they get on their ways. Once out, we discover that we all live in a big prison, on endless roads which start and seem not to end. All roads end. Eventually. Absolutely harsh, touching, fierce, itching and scratching, disturbing movie about reality. A must see for those who have their own cliché definitons of how a "road movie" must be like.

Thank Yilmaz Guney and Serif Goren for doing such a tremendous movie.Actings are excellent.This movie is the proof of the possibility to make great films with limited financial resources.Tarik Akan gives a perfect performance.The most I liked in the movie is the hesitation of Seyit Ali to leave Zine alone on the mount.Yol is a very well acted, edited, and directed movie.Of course it would be a great fault to forget the screen written by Yilmaz Guney.Thank people who gives us the opportunity to see "Yol" .

This excellent movie shows how people in their life are the prisoner of their situation. The live in a world and society that expects them things to do and behave, and the do and behave as expected, even if they don't feel happy with it, or hurts them. They have to. This is a lesson for myself, and life as I experience it. Yhis is dramatically illustrated in the movie in the scene in which the husband is forcing his wife to go with him through the mountains, through the snow. Which has a bad ending. I remember this scene even more than 20 years after I saw it ever. This 'being prisoner of your situation' is not specific for the Turkish or any culture. I think it is typical for humans in general. Look around and you will see.

The artistry of this movie is astonishing in virtually every aspect of its filmmaking. What makes that all the more remarkable is that the footage was all shot by the assistant director in Turkey then taken to Switzerland for Yilmaz Güney (a brilliant writer/director who had to leave Turkey to escape persecution and imprisonment, mostly because of his empathy for the plight of the Kurdish people under Turkish rule) to edit and dub. The cinematography is colorful, rich and varied. The musical sound track is beautiful and well-integrated. The various subplots seem to echo and build on each other. Somehow, while making the grim realities of modern Turkey all too evident, this film also left me with a feeling of the indomitability of those who struggle for freedom.

Turkey is officially the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, along with Israel. But "Yol" shows that regardless of Turkey's official classification, it does have political prisoners. In this case, five of them are given a leave so that they can visit their families. While on their leaves, they (and the audience) get to see the realities of life. They may have been released from prison, but there are some metaphoric prisons that we can never escape, no matter how free we consider ourselves.

It was interesting that Yilmaz Guney managed to make this movie from jail. He did a very good job here.