The Fragility of Togetherness: Reflections On the City, Home and Family

Year 2021, , 89 - 98, 01.07.2021

Sertaç T. Demir

https://doi.org/10.47478/lectio.884338

Abstract

This article deals with the home and family as socio-economic projections of urban fate through the film Köprüdekiler (Men on the Bridge, 2009). Accordingly, a desire for having a better life dominates spatial expectations and triggers marital conflicts. At this point, just as family bonds do not correspond to unconditional commitments, home is no longer a mental or spiritual shelter for couples. Belongings are ambivalent; intimacies are uncanny, and ties are weak. In this article, the condition of social fragility is debated through two characters, Umut and Cemile, in the film. They are married but unhappy. Köprüdekiler is a film that zooms in the lives of those who are pushed away from the centre to the margins of society in Istanbul. In this paper, it is concentrated on the city as being both a hopeful and disappointing dilemma; on the home as a place of vulnerability; and on the family as a modern symbol of fragility. The analyzed awarded-film deepens and elaborates the socio-urban reality by reflecting it simply as it is.

Keywords

The city, Home, Family, Togetherness, Conflict, Men on the Bridge

Thanks

I would like to thank my supervisors Prof. Bülent Diken and Dr. Graeme Gilloch at Lancaster University for their guidance in improving this paper, which is written as a chapter of my PhD thesis.

Birlikteliğin Kırılganlığı: Kent, Ev ve Aile Üzerindeki Yansımalar

Abstract

Bu makale Köprüdekiler (2009) filmi üzerinden evi ve aileyi kentsel yazgının sosyo-ekonomik izdüşümleri olarak ele almaktadır. Buna göre, daha iyi bir yaşam isteği, mekânsal beklentileri baskılamakta ve ailevi bölünmeyi tetiklemektedir. Gelinen noktada, aile bağları koşulsuz taahhütlere karşılık gelmediği gibi, ev de çiftler için artık mental veya manevi sığınak değildir. Aidiyetler belirsiz, yakınlıklar tekinsiz, bağlar ise zayıftır. Bu makalede bu toplumsal kırılganlık durumu, filmin iki karakteri Umut ve Cemile’nin hikâyesi üzerinden tartışılmaktadır. Umut ve Cemile evlidir, fakat mutsuzlardır. Köprüdekiler filmi İstanbul’da toplumun merkezinden kenarlarına itilen insanların yaşamına yakınlaşmaktadır. Bu çalışmada kente hem umutlu hem de hayal kırıcı ikilem; eve incinebilirlik yeri; aileye ise kırılganlığın modern sembolü olarak yoğunlaşılmaktadır. Analize konu olan ödüllü film bu sosyo-kentsel gerçekliği olduğu gibi yansıtarak derinleştirmekte ve detaylandırmaktadır.

Keywords

Kent, Ev, Aile, Birliktelik, Çatışma, Köprüdekiler

References

• Akın, F. (2012). “11’e 10 Kala”. Available at: http://www.menonthebridge.com/. [Accessed 20 December 2012].
• Bauman, Z. (1994). Alone Again: Ethics after Certainty, London: Demos.
• Bauman, Z. (1997). Postmodernity and its Discontents, Oxford and Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Bauman, Z. (1999a). In Search of Politics, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity, Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press.
• Bauman, Z. (2001). Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World, Cambridge, Oxford and Malden: Polity Press.
• Bauman, Z. (2003a). Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, Cambridge, Polity Press; Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
• Bauman, Z. (2003b). City of Fears, City of Hopes, London, Goldsmiths College: University of London Press.
• Demir, S. T. (2014). “The City on Screen: A Methodological Approach on Cinematic City Studies”, CINEJ Journal 4 (1): 21-36.
• Diken, B. and Laustsen, C. B. (2007). Sociology through the Projector, London and New York: Routledge.
• Dowd, J. (1999). “Waiting for Louis Prima: On the Possibility of a Sociology of Film, Teaching Sociology”. Teaching Sociology, 27 (4), 324-342.
• Lapsley, R. (1997). Mainly in Cities and at Night: Some Notes on Cities and Film. In Clarke, David. B. (Ed.) The Cinematic City. New York and London: Routledge.
• Lefebvre, H. (1996) Writings on Cities, Malden and Massachusetts: Blackwell.
• Ruskin, J. (1891). Sesame and Lilies, New York: Metropolitan Publishing Co.
• Sennett, R. (1992). The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities, New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company Inc.
• Sennett, R. (1996). The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life, London: Faber and Faber.
• Sennett, R. (1998). The Corrosion of Character: Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism: New York, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.
• Sennett, R. (2003). Respect: The Formation of Character in a World of Inequality, London, New York, Victoria, Toronto, New Delhi, Auckland and Rosebank: Penguin Books.
• Simmel, G. (1971). On Individuality and Social Forms, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.