The Ugly King continues to give hope to the people

Murat KARAKÜTÜK

No matter what society a person resides in, they are, in their subjective and objective nature, the property of that society, the product of that society. Therefore, what they did, what they would do, what they thought, and what they would think could not be considered apart from the general characteristics, turmoil, and tendencies of that society. (Salpa, Yılmaz Güney )

Yılmaz Güney, who passed away in Paris on September 9, 1984, at the age of 47, was not just an actor; he was also a figure who transformed Turkish cinema as a screenwriter, director, and producer. Two things had fascinated him since his childhood: poverty and cinema . To end poverty, the spell had to be broken, and that was what Güney pursued throughout his life: revolution .

MEMORY OF CINEMA

Hope was the story of a coachman trapped in poverty and despair; The Herd depicted lives crushed by the weight of the feudal system; The Road questioned the price of freedom. These films reflected not only an era but also the lingering societal wounds. Cabbar's broken carriage, Şivan's loss of his herd, and the prisoners' roads back home became enduring images in the public memory.

"Sürü ve Yol" (The Herd and the Road), which he wrote from prison, was not only a film but also a document for collective memory. Yol's Palme d'Or win at Cannes marked the opening of Turkish cinema to the world. This success brought international visibility not only to Güney but also to social realism.

Yılmaz Güney was one of the most nuanced thinkers in this region. He discussed cinema not as a tool for amplifying political imagery, but rather in terms of how it was told. Throughout his journey from screenwriting to acting and directing, he drew inspiration from Neorealism, but he also translated the realities of his own society into a unique cinematic language. His camera depicted poverty without aestheticizing it; his stories were not slogans, but life itself.

Yes, many of his early films might be considered didactic and crude, but they were also the first voices of the Left in Turkish cinema, the first established sentences. What followed were the masterpieces that emerged from prison: Sürü (The Herd) and Yol (The Road). Just as the system drives people into crime, Güney demonstrated that the system can produce even within prison.

Forty-one years after his death, Güney still lives on. Because his cinema lives on in the public memory. Remembering him is, in part, a tribute to cinema's courage in holding a mirror up to society.