‘Salvation’ Review: Emin Alper’s Trenchant Political Allegory

The title of Turkish writer-director Emin Alper’s Salvation (Kurtuluş) carries a bitter sting, pointing up how a perceived enemy threat can be manipulated to seed survivalist panic that escalates into genocide. Salvation for one side means elimination of the other, and establishing which is the righteous side can be entirely subjective, especially when the aggrieved become the aggressors. Those blurred boundaries are the subject of Alper’s powerful slow-burn drama.

The movie is an occasionally confusing but mostly gripping account of inter-clan conflict fueled by the nightmares of an ordinary man, who overnight becomes a mystic religious leader. But it’s also a timely and chilling allegory for strongmen rulers across the globe whose nationalist rhetoric fuels “us or them” hostility. Patient attention is required to sort out the characters and geography but once the fuse is fully lit and the material elevated by the introduction of dreams and superstitions, Salvation burns.

Unrest begins in a remote Turkish mountain village when the Hazeran clan, who fought off terrorist attacks to protect their community’s land, learn that the Bezari tribe, who fled to the city for safety, have returned now that the threat has subsided. And they want their land back.

For generations, the Bezaris bought up all the fertile land in the valley and grew rich off the backs of the Hazeran servant class. But in their absence, the Hazerans have been farming the fields, keeping the soil irrigated and planting crops. They have strong feelings about simply handing it back, especially before harvest time, asking why others should profit from their hard work, not to mention the sacrifices of those who died in the conflict. But the Bezaris have the gendarmerie on their side.

The Hazerans’ spiritual leader is Sheik Ferit (Feyyaz Duman), whose confidence, eloquence and matinee-idol looks made him a natural to leapfrog over his brooding older brother Mesut (Caner Cindoruk) when the position was passed down. But Ferit’s conciliatory inclinations and his counsel to the villagers to leave the contested lands peacefully don’t play well with the fired-up locals.

Gatherings intended for worship in the village lodge devolve into shouting matches that raise the temperature in a similar way to the heated meeting between locals and corporate interlopers in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist or the impromptu town hall in Cristian Mungiu’s R.M.N. When Ferit advises them to hand over an evicted farmer who has gone into hiding, it’s clear to the villagers that the Sheik is the wrong man to lead their fight.

While others like Yilmaz (Berkay Ateş) are more vocal opponents to Ferit, it’s agreed that Mesut should step up and take charge. He seems uncertain at first, but when he starts having visions, he interprets them as divine guidance that he must take up the mission and protect what rightfully belongs to the Hazerans.

Homes are firebombed, a man turns up dead, a farmer’s stable is sabotaged, with his animals pushed into a pond — these and other events suggest that neither side is a passive victim in this fight. But we see only one point of view

A jealous, insecure man prone to insomnia, Mesut’s dreams begin in one of the movie’s most disturbing scenes, with the seduction of his wife Gülsüm (Özlem Taş) by an invisible force. Gülsüm once worked for a wealthy Bezari family, and when Mesut learns she is pregnant with twins, his suspicious nature goes into overdrive. It’s fed by superstition about twins being the work of the devil, planting an evil child to corrupt the innocent one.

Alper (Beyond the Hill, Burning Days) keeps the divide between dreams and reality porous, so when Mesut follows furtive strangers at night around the village’s warren of dark alleyways, it’s often unclear whether they exist or not. The same goes for his nocturnal encounters with Yilmaz’s son, a sleepwalking messenger who tells him not to fight alone, reassuring him that the villagers will stand beside him.

There is no shortage of political parallels to be drawn between Mesut — a weak man who suddenly finds himself with a devoted following, generating a surge of strength, power and authority — and world leaders who exploit populist sentiment by filling people’s heads with fear of their rights being taken away by an “enemy” force that may represent no threat at all. The same applies to colonialist settlers throughout history.

The writer-director deftly illustrates how quickly and dangerously this kind of leadership can take root, spreading the mission with cult-like persuasion. This is particularly evident when villagers start experiencing the same dream as Mesut, signaling where and when they should meet and take up arms.

It becomes a chilling inevitability that Mesut will eventually go full firebrand, announcing that they need to end the vendetta before it starts: “We must show no pity, cleanse our village of this filth, leave no one alive.” The mission takes on the solemnity of a holy war, and the conclusion, even if it’s preordained, packs a shocking punch.

This is a solidly acted drama with notably strong work from Cindoruk as the unlikely rabble-rouser. It’s also beautifully shot, with fluid camerawork from Ahmet Sesi̇gürgi̇l and Barış Aygen that snakes with grace and agility through the paths that break up the village, occasionally swooping into stunning overhead shots of the lower village in the valley, where the Bezaris have resettled, and the vast sprawl of surrounding lands. Christiaan Verbeek’s score is highly effective, ranging from ominous passages propelled by drums and goading percussion to turbulent strings steadily cranked up in intensity.

This year’s Berlin Film Festival has been dominated to some extent by the online uproar in response to jury president Wim Wenders’ assertion that filmmakers “have to stay out of politics.” Whether the remarks were taken out of context or just a clumsy way of deflecting questions about Gaza or Donald Trump, Alper makes a cogent case that good political cinema can be charged with vitality and meaning.