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Yol Movie Review

Yol is a 1982 Turkish drama film directed by Serif Goren and starring Tarik Akan. It’s a pretty good, polished movie.

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“Fear is the guard of everyone’s house.“

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When five Kurdish prisoners are granted one week’s home leave, they find to their dismay that they face continued oppression outside of prison from their families, the culture, and the government. It’s a strong, dramatic storyline that also manages to be rather epic in tone and scope. Although I personally wasn’t constantly invested throughout due to its quite slow pacing, it’s still a very emotional, interesting viewing experience.

The characters are quite well developed with the protagonist played by Tarik Akan being the finest of the bunch. The drama with his wife is very much something that those from this particular region would find relatable as it seems quite backwards for anyone watching the film from the West. Still, it was essential to portray the traditions and culture of Turkey reasonably realistically, which is something this film does in spades.

Honor killing is very well explored, painfully so, but so is the alienation and abandonment one may feel after coming from a prison. But I personally did not connect with these people as the movie clearly strongly intended me to. Maybe because of their rugged personalities and appearance, but still something felt off for me, which is why I did not love this film as much as others did, though I still found it pretty strong and commendable.

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Some of the knowledge of Turkish history is definitely important before seeing this movie as the film itself doesn’t really explain it all that well. Thus, you need to do your own homework before or after the viewing of the movie. The details were too sparse for me and was the dialogue, but the technical aspects are undeniably impressive. The cinematography is great and some of the imagery is quite epic and arresting, especially in that adventurous, moving and geographically enormous second half. The performances from its actors are also great and Yol is very well directed by its two directors as well.