Dry Summer (Metin Erksan, 1964)

Ulvi Dogan and Erol Tas in Dry Summer

Osman: Erol Tas
Bahar: Hülya Koçygit
Hasan: Ulvi Dogan
Veli Sari: Hakki Haktan

Director: Metin Erksan
Screenplay: Metin Erksan, Kemal Inci, Ismet Soydan
Based on a novel by Necati Cumali
Cinematography: Ali Ugur
Music: Manos Hatzidakis

"Other cultures, other customs." That's the liberal mantra when it comes to things other countries do that we disapprove of, though we usually work on persuading them toward our views, especially when those things seem exceptionally cruel, like footbinding or female genital mutilation. Sometimes, though, we have to swallow hard and accept. This blog is a record of movies that I've seen, and I don't expect (and don't often get) drop-ins looking for recommendations. But I welcome them, and if you're one of those, I feel obliged to issue a warning: Metin Erksan's Dry Summer, a much-praised Turkish film, contains two instances of animal cruelty that may be more than you can take. The first is a close-up of a chicken having its head cut off. We've grown so far from our rural roots that a scene like this can be shocking, but we should be obliged to realize that it's a routine occurrence on farms around the world -- and that thousands of chickens are slaughtered in supposedly more humane ways every day so they can arrive in supermarkets neatly wrapped in plastic. The other scene is much harder to take: A dog is shot and yelps in pain before it dies. I see no way that director Metin Erksan has faked this animal's suffering and death -- we later see its carcass being hauled away, head lolling -- and I can't bring myself to countenance its raw inclusion in Dry Summer, even though the killing plays a role in establishing the mood and intensity of the film. Otherwise, Dry Summer, which was chosen for inclusion in Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project and released in the Criterion Collection, is a savage melodrama about a war between a landowner and the other farmers who depend on the spring on his property to water their crops. As characters in the film repeatedly say, "Water is the earth's blood." When Osman decides to dam up the water near the source on his property, he naturally inspires animosity: The dog that's shot is Osman's. But there is a war in Osman's household as well, when his younger brother, Hasan, takes a pretty young wife, Bahar. Osman is a widower, and he spies through a crack in the wall at Hasan and Bahar making love. As the war between the water-deprived farmers and the brothers intensifies, with the dam -- little more than a sluice gate -- continually under attack, Osman finally sheds blood, killing Veli Sari, the leader of the rebelling farmers, during a nighttime assault on the gate. But he persuades Hasan to take the rap: Osman claims that he's more mature and experienced and so the better choice to keep the farm going while Hasan goes to prison. Naturally, Hasan's absence also gives Osman an opening to seduce his brother's wife, which he finally succeeds in doing when a newspaper report says that a man named Hasan has died in prison. Osman has been intercepting Hasan's letters to Bahar, so ít's easy for him to tell her that her husband is now dead. Erksan stages Osman's obsessive pursuit of Bahar well, including a scene in which he's milking a cow as she watches, so he begins fingering and even mouthing the teats suggestively. In another scene, Bahar is bitten by a snake, and Osman relishes the opportunity to suck the poison from the wound in her leg. Eventually, of course, Hasan turns up alive, after being released from prison in a general pardon, and takes his revenge on his brother, resulting in a strong closing scene in which Osman's corpse floats down the watercourses after the dam is broken. Some very sophisticated camerawork adds to the impact of the story, and Erol Tas makes Osman into a memorable villain. Which is why I regret that the killing of the dog mars my reception of the film.