The Film of the Story: White as Snow / Ülkü Tatar

2015.12.04
maksatsinema.com

When we read a story or a novel, the images that form in our minds of what is written there are entirely our own. We place no limits on ourselves when it comes to the characters and scenes we create in our imagination. This is exactly why we are disappointed when we watch a film adaptation of a literary work.

The difficulties arising from the differences in style between a literary work and cinema mean that certain limitations are placed on a film adaptation, and that additions and omissions are made. On top of this, since the images that form in the director’s mind while adapting the literary work for the screen will be very different from those of other readers, it is almost impossible to build a shared audience of admirers in this respect. Even so, some book adaptations by accomplished directors have managed to become even more prominent than the books they were adapted from.

Another aspect of this situation, which is partly a matter of personal taste, is that audiences have often turned to the works after the adapted film became hugely popular. It should also be remembered that, just as we witness adaptations bringing different interpretations to a literary work, we also see adaptations that remain completely faithful to it.

Selim Güneş is one of those who chose to remain faithful to the story in “White as Snow”, the 2010 film he wrote and directed based on Sabahattin Ali’s story “Ayran”. Even if we say he made no changes to the story, it is also true that he let his own pen speak to fill some gaps. Before the film and the gaps it fills, it is worth talking about the story of little Hasan, who, summer and winter, has to sell ayran at the station he reaches every day after a two-hour walk.

The Story of Little Hasan

White as Snow is the story of little Hasan, who knows he has covered half of the two-hour walk to the station when he sees the willow tree; who has to sell ayran because he has two siblings to look after; and whose only thought, apart from his mother, whom he sees just once a week because she works as a servant somewhere far away, is the return journey along this two-hour road.

That day, as on every other day, Hasan went to sell ayran at the station over which helplessness, indifference and gloom had settled. Despite all this negativity and wickedness, the ayran in the jug he holds is as white as the magical snow falling from the sky. Although in summer he somehow manages to sell his ayran, in winter things do not go as he wishes, so that day, having sold no ayran and having decided to wait for the next train, Hasan is caught by the dark on his way back. And perhaps even Hasan had not guessed that on this dark journey home, rather than going on amid this whiteness, this fear and the cries of hungry animals, he would long to be inside his little earthen house, hungry and thirsty but safe.

Hasan, lost and afraid of the dark… Hasan, falling to his knees from exhaustion, hunger, fear and running, and trying to get back on his feet… In the darkness he is trapped among the howls of the wolves. But in the end he is only a child. And as he surrenders to all of this, the last words to leave his lips are: “Mother! My dear mother!”

From the beginning of the film to its final scene, what greets us is always snowy, misty mountains. And, of course, a small boy in the snow, in the mist, struggling to carry his heavy jug full of ayran. Every scene in the film is almost a photographic frame. Of course, the fact that Selim Güneş is also a photographer plays a large part in this. It is as if the director pressed play to tell the story of each frame.

Reflections from the Story

The film begins with a happy crowd laughing, having fun and dancing at a wedding. Hasan is standing in a tree with his balloon in his hand, unaware that the gendarmes will soon come and take his father away. These scenes, which are not in the story itself, are the ones Selim Güneş chose for Hasan’s father, about whom the story tells us very little. Hasan’s father has been arrested because he is among the political prisoners. That is why Hasan has fallen into hardship and taken on the responsibility for his two siblings. This responsibility goes no further than buying bread for his siblings in the evening with the money he earns selling ayran at the station. But whenever he manages to buy this black bread, he has already done all he can.

In the film, as Hasan makes his way not to the station but to the bus stop to sell his ayran, he chats with his jug. Because he has taken it for a friend. This friendship, which is not in the story, is a lovely detail. The film also has details that fill in the gaps, such as making the man in the story, who drinks Hasan’s ayran and does not pay because he has no change, a forest engineer who has gone there reluctantly after being posted.

Selim Güneş also does not fail to ask Hasan the question that every reader of the story wonders about: “Why are you selling cold ayran in this weather?” Because answering it is both easy and hard, and perhaps because we will never find an answer, the reply that comes makes us smile: “There is no such thing as hot ayran.”

Final Word

As the film progresses, we hear Hasan’s story as an old man who lives there briefly tells it to the person he is having tea with. When he hears words of pity for the little boy in response to his story, the old man brings us back to ourselves, saying: “No, there is always hope!” Because we too, after all we have heard, feel pity for Hasan and hopelessness inside. However sad a film Selim Güneş has made, he wanted there always to be hope in it. That is why he wanted to believe that Hasan tries to protect himself against the howls of the wolves with the pocketknife his father gave him, and that, as he is lost in the darkness, his mother is actually coming after him to find him, and he included these things in the screenplay. Hasan’s balloon flying away and his book falling into the water and drifting off are also among the things added to the screenplay. Whatever beautiful and hopeful thing Hasan holds slips from his hands and falls. Yes, there is hope. But Hasan’s hands are not big enough to hold on to hope.

Yes, this is the story of little Hasan. It is in fact the never-changing story of Hasan and those like him, only the time and place have changed. It is the story of the children we see when we go outside now, holding not ayran but tissues, trying to sell them not at a station but to cars stopped at red lights. And it is the story of those of whom we do not know which wolf they will fall prey to one evening as darkness falls…

And perhaps, if you look at them a little more carefully, you may also see them wiping their noses with the cracked back of their left hand.

*****

Note: This article was first published in the November–December 2015 issue of Mavi Yeşil magazine.

*** http://www.maksatsinema.com/2015/12/kar-beyaz-2010.html