This delicately-paced story about the ironclad Turkish custom of honor killing encompasses all the restrictive practices of closed societies that grant no freedom to women and punish them for the sins of the men. Because young Meryem has been raped, she must be sent to Istanbul to be executed far from the shame at home.
Although the story has been told innumerable times, Bliss is as fresh as the Turkish breeze blowing over the sailboat Meryem and her cousin, Cemal, find refuge on after he fails to kill her transporting her to the city. It is difficult to expunge the images, like those in Knife in the Water, of purity and violation that hang around the boat while the skipper professor, knowing nothing of the horror Meryem has been through, takes on the couple as crew and eventually as students in the art of leading a happy life.
Director Abdullah Ogduz successfully mixes the lyrical escape with the impending doom, the happiness tainted by her past as an impure woman, and the relentless pursuit by a family bound to kill the young woman.
The three principals are as powerful as any others in this year's canon: Cemal is a robust young ex-soldier used to obeying officers and his father; Meryem, who refuses to accuse anyone of the rape, is a naïve with a second-grade education fascinated by the ship's map, a gentle metaphor for the transforming nature of the trip; professor Irfan, is a handsome, charismatic older man, who must navigate his own life to reach a more peaceful place, but not before he teaches the couple about love and life.
Bliss is an ironic title or not depending on your orientation. I recommend you make up you mind by seeing one of the simple sea stories that tells a much larger tale about repression and the emergence of women from imprisonment.
Maryem's innocent face will haunt you as the images of the romantic boat lull you into complacency about the hidden horrors of repressive societies.
Bliss is one of the best films to sail into theaters in the last two years.
