Anons - The Announcement Directed by Mahmut Fazil Coskun
Anons - The Announcement
Directed by Mahmut Fazil Coskun
Starring: Ali Seckiner Alici, Tarhan Karagöz, Murat Kiliç, Sencan Güleryüz, Serkan Ercan, Erdem Senocak, Mehmet Yilmaz Ak
Year: 2018
Country: Turkey, Bulgaria
Review Author: Roberto Matteucci
Click Here for Italian Version
On July 15, 2016, a group of soldiers attempted a coup in Turkey. As in every insurrection, troopers tried to occupy ministries, television, radio, roads, and airports. There was a moment of confusion and misunderstanding, but within a few hours, the loyalists reconquered the command. The uprising failed but the consequences were painful for Turkey.
Turkey is an important country, a member of NATO, an outpost during the Cold War. The army is strong-willed and influential in political matters.
Three coups were successful, but a lot failed because were approximate and little studied, as happened in 2016.
So Turkish are accustomed to the coups. They have an often caustic interpretation: they happen, and they can not avoid them. There are earthquakes and droughts, and there are coups.
The story of a military failure is the focus of the movie Anons - The Announcement by the Turkish director Mahmut Fazil Coskun presented at the 75th Venice Film Festival.
After the triumphant coup of 1960, there were two others ones aborted in 1962 and 1963. The author describes the second. It is not a historical description but human, ironic and sarcastic portrait of the coup officiers.
It narrates about four officers of the reserve: Lieutenant Sinasi, Major Kemal, Major Rifat and Colonel Reha. It is the night of May 22, 1963 in Istanbul. They join the riot. They would have a seemingly easy task, seize the city radio station. Inside they just should read an announcement favourable to the armed forces.
The beginning of the movie is on a stormy evening, it rains very hard. There are two passengers in a taxi. A song fills the scene. In the darkness of the car, the driver asks the usual curious questions. They stop twice, the first because they have to move a dead dog from the street. The second because they were blocked at a police checkpoint. Before getting out the guests react loaded guns. The journey continues, at the destination the customers kill the driver.
They wear their uniforms and go to the radio station. They invade it, block surveillance. They must record a message in favour of the insurgents. They meet strong and tenacious resistance. But not for the reaction of the military or the government's tanks. It is a different opposition, more subtle, more stubborn, more vigorous.
The enemies are the absences from work, marriages in crisis, bureaucrats, chatty neighbours. They can not do anything against them. For the rebels there is no hope, they will be crushed and exterminated.
For them, the defeat does not mean being arrested or executed. Something worse happens: no one noticed the coup. The indifference of Istanbul is combinedwith the coolness of the four soldiers in the restaurant after the fatal night.
The analogies with the events of July 2016 are random; as always, reality copies art. Mahmut Fazıl Coşkun explains this to the specific question:
”Was this film inspired by, or is it a comment on, the attempted military coup d’état on 15 July 2016?”
“The coup that happened in Turkey in 2016 was a total coincidence. We started to write the script for The Announcement four years ago, and we had already finished one draft of the script when the coup happened. It felt so strange to see that coup happening as we were going to start shooting two months later, and there I was sitting at home, watching the reports on the coup on TV, and of course, I realised it was almost the same story as my script. It was very strange.” (1)
It is not strange. It is the daily life of people forced to live with the madness of power. It's an anti-power film, it's a film about power fought with absurdity.
It's the style of the story:
“The style of the film is very reminiscent of deadpan comedies from the likes of Aki Kaurismäki and the early Coen brothers; were they inspirations?
I like senseless humour and observing, and staying behind a little bit, so maybe it reflects my personality. Of course I like these films and that humour. But I think it’s different from Kaurismäki and the Coens because they cut a lot, whereas I have more long takes, staging and carefully designed frames. I wanted to show the ideal world of the military guys. When I say military, it applies to any kind of idealism – communists, fascists or materialistic – anyone that has an ideal world, and that for me is the frame, the box itself, of society. In the film, I just wanted to hear the voices off-frame, the voices of others.” (1)
Many mocking and caustic sequences describe the theme.
One example is the spread of refrigerators in Turkey, unknown during the sixties. Everyone is curious about the appliance: "are these wardrobes expensive?"
During the coup, it appears several times. The first use is to hide a corpse.
The second, the officier is interested in advertising for selling. So he asks to radio director about the prices of the advertisements, showing apathy towards the rebellion.
Even more shocking is the Korean anthem affair.
One of the officers has a beautiful voice. He fought in Korea during the civil war. He was chosen to sing the anthem of South Korea. When he started, everyone was appalled: it was that of North Korea. He was wrong. It is a fantastic mistake, anti militarist, pacifist and madly ironic. He was expelled from the front.
The colleagues recall the episode. The sequence: in a minuscule room he is singing the anthem with the other two soldiers next to him. Their look is concentrated, proud, contemplative. In the same time it is embarrassing because they wear a pathetic tank top.
A surreal episode, as the Martini joke.
Symbolic is the search of the radio technician. The coupists would like to broadcast the announcement but it is impossible because the sound assistant is absent. The radio manager complains "unfortunately there is no way to be informed in advance when similar events occur."
An incisive pun, an irony of normality, moreover he remembers that they had gone to pick him up at home even for a coup d'état of 1960.
He also protests the lack of interest during the coup of the previous year, no military appeared on the radio.
For the putschists, there is no other solution. They take the car, arrive at his house, but he is out. They ask the elderly neighbour, they enter into his apartment to use the telephone.
Sitting in the vintage living room, director, troop and neighbour converse kindly. The old man criticizes amiably the radio manager: "You give too much airtime to western music". The soldiers are cold, indifferent, time passes, the coup d'état looms, but they are blocked by polite chatter.
More complex is the opening and final scene. There is an obvious connection. In a clinic, everything is white, in contrast to the dominant black of the rainy night. The pure colour is interrupted by the green of the sanitary uniform. The doctor is German, is examining a Turkish man, he speaks and the nurse translates. It is a static and wide shot, there is a sense of anguish.
The last part, there is again the patient. He is the baker Murat, employed by of one of the golpist. He drives the van and accompanies the soldiers to the station. Inside there is bread because he takes advantage of the journey for his daily deliveries.
Murat is a not involved to machination, but he breaks a tooth in a skirmish.
In the clinic, there are medical examinations for Turks applying for a work visa for Germany. The answer is negative because Murat does not have a tooth.
The scene has an articulate tone, out of the film language. It narrates the Turkish emigration towards a Germany in need of cheap labour. Murat, together with the taxi driver and a traitor, will be the victims of the golpe.
The language, the structure, the narration, the subject are clear and defined:
“There are many comic moments in the film, with soldiers speaking about fridges just arrived on the market in Turkey or about Martini drink while something dramatically serious is going on. I found particularly funny the story of a conspirator who recounts he was expelled from the Korean front because he sang the wrong anthem, the one of the other Korea. Is this story based on a true event?
Yes the story is based on true events mostly or maybe it’s better to say it’s inspired from true events. We read many diaries, newspapers etc. Most of the characters and small stories are in the film are fictional though, such as frigidaire, martini or Korean anthem.” (2)
Reality is only fiction. Mahmut Fazil Coskun creates many great images, actors pose as in paintings. Example is the beautiful still shot in the recording studio. The frame is the glass of the study. The three officers are at attention, stand still, without smiling, severe, the background is black. They stare at the camera, the viewers, they wanted to apologize for being incapable?
There are several theatrical settings in small spaces, as the dialogues both in the taxi and in the bread van.
Professional soldiers are missing. Reservists have other commitments and other jobs, they are more worried about refrigerators.
They are defeated, their task fails. They have no news from Ankara where the rebels should have attacked the ministries. In the morning, without knowing the outcome, they leave the radio and enter a restaurant for breakfast. Nothing has happened. Istanbul is the usual city, no one has noticed. The coup d'état failed in the general indifference. Perhaps it was a power internal dispute, both civil and military because the common people were totally unmotivated. Persons have other problems.
(1) https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/359725/
(2) http://www.geomovies.it/2018/10/30/the-announcement-mahmut-fazil-coskun-interview-venice75/