Sabahattin Ali adaptations in cinema / Rıza Oylum
Automatically translated from Turkish. Read the original
2015.04.29
edebiyathaber.net
An aesthetic adaptation: White as Snow
After the two adaptations made in 1990, we went a long time without encountering a new adaptation of Sabahattin Ali’s works. The first adaptation made after all those years, Selim Güneş’s White as Snow, shot in 2011, was based on Sabahattin Ali’s story Ayran. Winner of many awards at national and international festivals, the film combined striking visuals with realistic acting.
White as Snow is a free adaptation of the story Ayran. In Ayran, Sabahattin Ali told the tragic story of Hasan, a boy of 12 or 13 living in a mountain village, who is both mother and father to his two younger siblings. It is impossible to say that White as Snow is a one-to-one reflection of the story. One can say that, compared with the story, it has a richer cast of characters and a richer plot. Although the director starts from the story, he has changed the period in which the events take place. He has also created an original film by adding characters who are not in the story and making small cinematic additions.
First, in the original work we never see Hasan’s father. White as Snow, however, begins with Hasan’s father being arrested and put in prison. Written in 1938, the story is shifted, in a way the audience will also feel, to a period of military coup, 12 September 1980. Third, while Sabahattin Ali’s story takes place along the railway, the film moves to the matchless highland pastures of the Black Sea, to Artvin, and new characters are added. The train station of the original work has been turned into a deserted roadside where the minibuses going from the town to the village stop.
Selim Güneş, who moved from photography to directing, took care to capture highly aesthetic frames in White as Snow, his first attempt at directing. The film’s accomplished set designs deserve praise. The performances, too, are far from artificial, and convincing enough to reflect the language and manners of the region.
*****
*** http://www.edebiyathaber.net/sinemada-sabahattin-ali-uyarlamalari-riza-oylum/