YOL (Trek of Life)

Turkish actor-director Yilmaz Guney spent half his time from 1961 to 1981 as a political prisoner, until his recent escape. Still in hiding, he is a national hero. European film critics have compared his work to that of Andrzej Wajda, Jean-Luc Godard, Vittorio De Sica, Satyajit Ray, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Pier Paolo Pasolini plus earlier masters D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein. YOL is the first Turkish film released in the U.S., and American critics also have praised Guney's forthright, epic-action style which depicts his sociopolitical awareness in an artistic blend of neo-realism and poetic symbolism. Based on the experiences of Guney and his fellow prisoners, YOL was directed by Serif Goren by proxy from Guney's prison cell. Five prisoners are on a one week leave from Imrali prison. Each man finds his brief time outside only proves that ongoing conditions generated by feudalism and patriarchy make as oppressive a prison as the state's incarceration. Custom decrees that one man must kill his unfaithful wife, another is denied his wife's love by her vengeful family, a third must give up love to marry his brother's widow. Guney's non-didactic expression of “people's suffering at the heart of life” powerfully introduces this important filmmaker to America.