Short Films

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Turkish Classics Revisited

THE ANGEL OF VENGEANCE – THE FEMALE HAMLET
İNTİKAM MELEĞİ - KADIN HAMLET

• Director: Metin Erksan
• TURKEY / 1976 / DCP / Colour / 86’ / Turkish; English s.t.

• Screenplay: Metin Erksan
• Original Work: William Shakespeare
• Director of Photography: Cahit Engin
• Editing: Süleyman Karakaya
• Cast: Fatma Girik, Sevda Ferdağ, Reha Yurdakul, Orçun Sonat, Nevra Serezli, Ahmet Sezerel, Yüksel Gözen, Ali Cağaloğlu, Ahmet Turgutlu
• Producer: Metin Erksan, Memduh Ün
• Co-Producer:
• Production Co.: Uğur Film
• World Sales: Özlem Havuzlu

Metin Erksan, who frequently utilised surreal elements in his films, created a fantastical world in The Angel of Vengeance – The Female Hamlet, which was a follow-up to his local adaptation of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. Metin Erksan’s version, which reconsiders Shakespeare’s perhaps most renowned, most famous play with Erksan’s unique cinematic vision, is set in Turkey in a contemporary period; Hamlet is not a man but a woman, a drama student studying in the USA, elements such as pop songs and imaginary orchestras appear in the film, and no one’s name remains the same except for Hamlet’s.

The plot is mostly the same: Hamlet’s father is murdered. The restless ghost of the murdered man appears to his daughter and tells her that the murderer is his brother, Hamlet’s uncle. Hamlet pretends to have gone mad in order to take her revenge and to uncover this murderous conspiracy, of which her mother is also an accomplice. She calls her actor friends and stages a play in the palace about the whole conspiracy. Hamlet’s revenge is bloody and fatal for everyone.

Contributing to the film reaching cult status over time, of course, in addition to the gender changes and temporal jumps, were the use of Timur Selçuk’s (‘Pireli Şarkı [The Flea Song]’) and Shostakovich’s (originally composed for Hamlet’s 1964 adaptation) compositions, the strunning performances of Fatma Girik as Hamlet, Reha Yurdakul as the uncle, and Sevda Ferdağ as the mother.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.