Turkish director Zübeyr ÅžaÅŸmaz’s ultra-violent, brazenly-commercial contemporary war story is a pulsating, riveting film; its very best bits are inspired by politically-charged Western action cinema both good (Paul Greengrass’ Bourne films and Peter Berg’s The Kingdom) and bad (Stallone’s Rambo bloodbaths).
The Valley of the Wolves brand is particularly potent in the Middle East, stemming from the iconic TV series which has already spawned two immensely popular feature films of variable quality. (In 2006, B-movie imports Billy Zane and Gary Busey enlivened the second entry, Valley of the Wolves: Iraq). With the biggest budget in Turkish film history to play with, ÅžaÅŸmaz leaves nothing on the table. Vast gun battles involving hundreds of extras, the mass destruction of property and military hardware (in one scene, five helicopters detonate simultaneously) and countless head and body squib-hits are just some of the extremes cast and crew go to. (Firefights are realised with immersive, first-person hand-held camerawork.)
The film uses the real-life massacre of aid-workers in the Gaza flotilla attacks of May 2010 as its starting point and follows a covert team of three Turkish 'black-op’ assassins dispatched to enact vengeance on the man who ordered the killings. The leader, Polat Alemdar (a steely-faced Necati ÅžaÅŸmaz, whose lethal means and rigid expression brings to mind Steven Seagal in his heyday) leads his team, Memati BaÅŸ (Gürkan Uygun) and Abdülhey Á‡oban (Kenan Á‡oban), on search-and-destroy missions deep within Israeli-occupied sectors of the Promised Land. They are both tracking and being tracked by the evil MoÅŸe Ben Eliyezer (Erdal BeÅŸikçioğlu), a merciless murderer of women and children. (His actions are often graphically portrayed in the film, as in the live-burial of a smart-mouthed, wheelchair-bound boy and the murder of his grandmother.)
Killing grannies? Burying disabled children alive? As you may have deduced, Zübeyr ÅžaÅŸmaz offers no ambiguity about which side represents 'true evil’ in the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel over regional entitlements. Jews, be they the secretive powerbrokers who order the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian innocents, or the soulless foot-soldiers who carry out those whims, are this film’s version of the Viet Cong in Rambo: First Blood II or the Russians in Rambo III – nasty, sneering, almost-cartoonish villains with no greater intent than the decimation of our heroes and the populations they represent.
This strategy sidesteps any serious examination of the region’s issues in favour of big-bang action and a crowd-pleasing climax, and it has gotten the production into trouble. In Germany, where its premiere was slated for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the film’s release was halted by the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Filmwirtschaft (FSK), the nation’s censorship board. ''Kurtlar Vadisi: Filistin’ is a problematic movie because it foments violence, anti-Israeli [feelings] and anti-Semitic sentiments," said Kerstin Griese, a parliamentary deputy for the opposition Social Democratic Party.
The filmmakers reacted as expected. '"This is not about taking revenge for Mavi Marmara," stated producer Zübeyr ÅžaÅŸmaz, in the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet, referencing the aid-vessel on which eight Turkish nationals and one Turkish-American died. "The goal of the film is to show what the Palestinians are going through." The New York Times quoted screenwriter Bahadır Özdener as saying, "We’re calling out to people’s conscience. All we want is freedom for innocent and tormented Palestinian people living in inhumane conditions in the world’s biggest prison."
That may have been the filmmaker’s feelings, but it never infuses the finished product. Valley of the Wolves: Palestine is a rousing revenge-fantasy and cracking piece of big screen action, where the good guys nail headshots from 100 yards away and the bad guys spray bullets everywhere to no avail. It no more truthfully highlights or details the plight of the Palestinian people than the Westerns of Hollywood yore told how tough those cowpokes had it, fighting off all 'dem injuns’. Enjoy the film for the adrenalised rush it offers then, if suitably outraged, seek out true-to-life tales of horror and heroism that have emerged from this centuries-old conflict.
Share
