Sad and timid songs of Anatolian people

Sad and timid songs of Anatolian people


Sunday, February 28, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

The movie, ‘Lost Songs of Anatolia,’ brings in something new to the Turkish history of cinema. Armenian folk songs are performed by Anatolian people for the first time in this movie. The movie will be released this month

Inspired by Peter Gabriel’s “Passion” album, which includes Anatolian folk songs, composer, producer and arranger Nezih Ünen produced a work dedicated to Anatolian.

Ünen packed his bag and hit the road exactly eight years ago. He had only one purpose: wandering from village to village or from town to town and compiling the folk songs of Anatolia. He researched incessantly for eight years.

The Anatolian people have sung almost forgotten folk songs without any need for instrumental accompaniment in many languages such as Turkish, Persian, Armenian, Greek, Kurdish and Syriac.

While compiling the songs, he also video recorded Anatolia and reminded many of the lively and colorful cultural make up of Turkey. Ünen told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review that this work was focused on a period of 100 years in Anatolia and he added, “A hundred years ago, cinema and the music industry started to grow up and circulate freely. While the world was developing quickly in culture and arts, Anatolia was left to solitude despite all its riches.”

Anatolia wrote its own poetry

The folk songs compiled by Ünen in eight years were released as an album titled “Lost Songs of Anatolia” by Kalan Music holding the archives of Anatolian ethnic music and owned by Hasan Saltuk. The movie, filmed by Ünen under the same name, will also be released March 12. Stating that “Lost Songs of Anatolia” was meant to be a movie not a documentary, Ünen continued: “Anatolia would reveal the truth about itself on its own. If it was a documentary, it would be too didactic. So I wanted it to be a movie composing its own poetry.”

Ünen said he took recordings for 350 hours and compiled hundreds of folk songs during his research. Stating he had difficulty in assembling the parts and creating the movie, Ünen also added: “There were many things to talk about. I was unwilling to cut or remove any information or scene but the time was limited.”

Armenian for the first time in Turkish cinema

In the movie, the folk songs were sung by local people without any interruption. The CD’s music and the movie’s music are different from each other. Armenian and Greek songs in the movie were not included in the CD. ”Armenian songs would be performed for the first time in a movie. This is a beginning in Turkish cinema history. I hope this will continue,” Ünen said. Describing Anatolia as a cultural treasure, Ünen said: “We should dote on Anatolia, protect all its riches and hand down this heritage to the next generations. This is our primary responsibility.”

Stuck between East and West

Remarking that Turkey turned its face toward the West since the foundation of the Turkish Republic and thus, lost its own values, Ünen said: “West lovers started to assume themselves as the lords of Istanbul. They look down upon the East and treat Anatolia as the ‘other.’ ‘The gentlemen of Istanbul’ who try to become Western without internalizing their own culture got stuck between East and West.” Ünen said Turkey should make a claim to its own culture and riches and added, “Turkey should not be a country fearing the diversity of its people and their languages.”

Stating that he is also a part of this country and grew up with the notion of official history, Ünen continued as follows: “In fact, when I realize that I do not know Anatolian people, I understood that I did not know myself either. After I became aware of this, I decided to do something about it and started from the point I knew best.”

Materials would not be wasted

Ünen said the movie was expensive and the Culture Ministry covered only 10 percent of the budget. “Financial difficulties did not deter us from our way,” said Ünen, adding that the eight years of work would not be limited to just a movie and a CD. Although he said he found documentaries somehow didactic, Ünen stated that he would prepare a documentary using the leftover parts of his research.

“I insist that the movie is poetry. I do not want to waste the materials at hand. So I would prepare a documentary. Viewing the documentary, the audience would feel that they traveled Anatolia from one end to the other,” Ünen said.