This film is definitely NOT about a woman. It's actually about 5 men who are incapable of telling a story of a woman. Vasfiye doesn't exist in reality, she is just an illusion. All four men talk about a woman named Vasfiye, but their stories contradict each other. Each of them tell about Vasfiye differently. The story of Vasfiye changes form according to the social position of each of those men.
The film is a satire which demonstrate us how any attempt by male authors/directors of telling stories of women without questioning their position in patriarchal society would fail dramatically. We see the crisis of male authors, their inability to understand women's opinions, experiences, desires. All men in the film including the journalist had proved incapable of telling a story of a woman. Yet, perhaps the difference between the journalist and others is that he realizes that he could not tell the story of Vasfiye and goes into a crisis. It is a crises of a man who realizes he cannot truly understand a woman. We can see a similar thing in Anna Karenina when Alexei Alexandrovich, Anna's husband, finds her notes:
"Here, looking at her desk with the malachite blotter lying on top and a note she had started, his thoughts suddenly changed. He began thinking about her, about what she thought and felt. For the first time he vividly imagined her private life, her thoughts, her desires, and the thought that she might and must have her own separate life seemed to him so terrible that he hastened to drive it away. This was that abyss into which he was afraid to look..."
The image of the journalist is shattered at the end of the film because it is impossible for him to remain the same person in order to tell Vasfiye's story. But, it is not a melancholic end, there is still hope. Although Vasfiye is not real, the rose she gives to the journalist is real. Although Vasfiye does not exist, women exist with their stories, desires, opinions and their stories would be told by feminists, not by some purblind, misogynist men.
In brief, what makes this film feminist is not it's telling a story of a woman who suffers etc. But it's showing how 5 men fail to tell the story of a woman.
The film is a satire which demonstrate us how any attempt by male authors/directors of telling stories of women without questioning their position in patriarchal society would fail dramatically. We see the crisis of male authors, their inability to understand women's opinions, experiences, desires. All men in the film including the journalist had proved incapable of telling a story of a woman. Yet, perhaps the difference between the journalist and others is that he realizes that he could not tell the story of Vasfiye and goes into a crisis. It is a crises of a man who realizes he cannot truly understand a woman. We can see a similar thing in Anna Karenina when Alexei Alexandrovich, Anna's husband, finds her notes:
"Here, looking at her desk with the malachite blotter lying on top and a note she had started, his thoughts suddenly changed. He began thinking about her, about what she thought and felt. For the first time he vividly imagined her private life, her thoughts, her desires, and the thought that she might and must have her own separate life seemed to him so terrible that he hastened to drive it away. This was that abyss into which he was afraid to look..."
The image of the journalist is shattered at the end of the film because it is impossible for him to remain the same person in order to tell Vasfiye's story. But, it is not a melancholic end, there is still hope. Although Vasfiye is not real, the rose she gives to the journalist is real. Although Vasfiye does not exist, women exist with their stories, desires, opinions and their stories would be told by feminists, not by some purblind, misogynist men.
In brief, what makes this film feminist is not it's telling a story of a woman who suffers etc. But it's showing how 5 men fail to tell the story of a woman.
