Yol 
1982 
Written by Yilmaz Guney 
114 minutes

This film won a Cannes festival award in 1982  for depicting five prisoners on 
leave from prison in Turkey. Yilmaz Guney was already a famous activist and 
actor before "Yol" came out, but "Yol" has had a lasting impact.

Guney had served prison time both for communist propaganda and later for murder. 
When he wrote the film he was in prison. His film is consciously political.

In our view, although the film depicts the lives of prisoners and we see all the 
nature of the military prison-state in Turkey clearly in "Yol," "Yol" is really 
about the womyn question under semi-feudalism in Turkey. We learn about the 
harsh customs concerning wimmin in Turkey from this film.

There is also a portion of the film dedicated to the Kurdish question, including 
armed struggle. However, there is no hero or clear political development of 
characters to this film. It is definitely completely "realistic."

"Yol" is an excellent contribution for many circles. Of course the Turkish and 
Kurdish people have already seen it. Another good audience would be those ex-
Soviet audiences living in the Caucusus and other areas similar to Turkey. When 
ex-Soviet people are inclined to think that Lenin and Stalin brought no social 
gains to life, they better go see "Yol." There they can see what life would be 
like had the Soviet Union had no revolution.

Although the film has good intentions, we believe its greatest weakness concerns 
English-speaking audiences who see the subtitled version. "Yol" does not attempt 
to give viewers the whole political picture of Turkey, and so English-speaking 
audiences that do not already know the u.$. imperialist role in Turkey will 
likely draw the wrong conclusions from the film--namely that the Turkish and 
Kurdish people are barbaric, period.

We are thankful that "Yol" did not become a hit on the scale of "Star Wars" in 
the united $tates, because it would have spurred general hatred against Middle 
East peoples. That is the result of Yilmaz Guney's use of a very realistic 
approach without sufficient use of character development or the outright use of 
heroes. Amerikkkans watching the film are free to draw the conclusion that semi-
feudal backwardness in Turkey is a Turkish problem that Amerikkkans do not have, 
because there is not a word in "Yol," realistic or otherwise, about 
imperialism's role in Turkey.

To this day, Turks and Kurds regard "Yol" as a statement of great truth. In 
select audiences and in audiences led by proletarian internationalist activists, 
"Yol" can serve as a great contribution.