carvinzager Review of The Miracle

The Miracle (2015)

Hopelessly crippled young man overcomes all obstacles

[7/10 · 22 April 2017]

First, many thanks to all the Turkish and Zaza Kurdish reviewers who wrote out of their own experience in the cultures shown in the film. It's not easy to do that in one's second or third language. As someone who has worked very hard on his Turkish, I know this firsthand. My wife and I watched Mucize together with the subs; our ear for eastern rural pronunciation is weak, since we lived entirely in Izmir and Istanbul. The story is, as other have pointed out, both simple and profound. Simple because village life in the early 1960s (the time I first went to Turkey on military duty) was one of very little contact with the outside world. Profound in the fact that, yes, unconditional love does "cover a multitude of sins" and shortcomings. Turks and Kurds can be profoundly loving. They can also be deeply disrespectful and cruel toward the handicapped and less fortunate. As can Americans. I say this out of a years long personal friendship with a young man in his 30s who is, even today, as severely handicapped as Aziz. My greatest wish for a stronger and even more moving film is this: the true story here is not the love of the village or the schoolteacher, even though those elements were a huge part of the story. The real story is what takes place between Aziz and his wife in the minutes (years) between their leaving the village and their return. What challenges did they overcome together? HOW did she "love" him from the severely crippled and incoherent young man in the first two hours of the film, into the handsome, well-spoken, well-presented man we see in the final few minutes? THAT is the real miracle, and yet we are denied that story. THAT story is the story of how to restore and rebuild and redeem a life that, to all appearances, seems beyond hope. I hope the director will one day tell THAT story because it will be the one that moves viewers beyond admirable expressions of sympathy, and into action that will, like Aziz's wife, and Aziz himself, create real miracles.