The Girl with the Red Scarf (1978)

MOVIE REFLECTION

The Girl with the Red Scarf (1978)

The Girl with the Red Scarf is a 1978 Turkish romantic drama film, directed by Atıf Yılmaz based on the short story The Red Scarf by Chinghiz Aitmatov, about a village girl who falls in love with a truck driver from İstanbul. The film, which won three awards, including second best film, at the 15th Antalya "Golden Orange" International Film Festival, was voted one of the 10 Best Turkish Films by the Ankara Cinema Association. This movie illustrates the story of a dilemma between a woman's love and her logic, along with the struggling love, we can also see the sense of mercy and humanity of the characters.

There are some details in the movie show humanity, which also become a factor making the movie more valuable. The first scene that shows us humanity is when Ilyas – the main male character stoped his truck and help strangers. Despite the fact that he could not finish his work in time, he still chose to help those bystanders in the heavy rain. These people could have died of cold and hungry without Ilyas’s help. This is when the humanity rose inside his mind, the spirit of people help the people made him do this. As a result, Ilyas lose his job and he had to sell his own truck, which is a meaningful things that have a strong attachment to him for a long time. Though he felt sorry for his self afterwards, his act of kindness is still really impressive. Another scene that illustrate humanity message occurs when Asya got the help of Cemsit. They were both stranger to each other, but somehow deep down inside Cemsit felt close and he want to help this poor lady and her newborn baby. His truck stopped by when he and his friend saw a lady wandering on the road. They let her stay at the back of the truck, when the baby started crying, Cemsit decided to ask to help, he hold the baby close and cover him with his jacket so that the baby felt warmer then fell asleep. At the time Cemsit realized that Alyas had nowhere to go, he took them to his small house to take care of them. Alyas was about to leave many times, however, she was touched by Cemsit’s care and mercy. He took care of them no matter what happened, he offered them food and shelter with such gentle treatment. This kind of action we can barely find without a flinch of doubt these recent days. If “humanity” was not strong enough, would Cemsit help this strange lady? His kindness brought them closer, which led Alyas fall in love and choose to stay with him instead of her ex-husband as she realized that staying beside him is better for her and her son in many ways. It was humanity that created their love foundation.

It is true that humanity can help changing many things. Even though the movie is based on some pretty extraordinary coincidences to move the story forward on several occasions, it still conveyed a wonderful message of “humanity”. I was moved into tears when it came to these scenes and I had a good time enjoying this movie.

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