Spaces of Love and Death in Halit Refig Movies |
Karilar Kogusu [Women's Ward] (1989)
The courtyards are besieged spaces that look up to a piece of sky. They are outdoors for the inside and indoors for the outside. Some open to the street, but still remain intimate. For the introverted spaces like jails, they are the witnesses of relationships, hopes and pains.
Women’s Ward is adapted from the book of Kemal Tahir. Murat (Kemal Tahir) who is jailed because of his ideology tries to help the prisoners around him as much as he can. The peasant woman, Hanim, who is sentenced to death, is one of them. In this scene, the courtyard is the symbol of being imprisoned, besieged and hopeless; although it catches a glimpse of sky, the courtyard is the space of actions that stay ‘between you and me’.