Bu Ben Değilim (Turkish Documentary) [This Is Not Me]

For those in the LGBTQ+ community who reside in the West, the greater freedoms and civil liberties that have emerged in recent decades have made life more fulfilling for this once-persecuted constituency. But, for those who live in more conservative lands, such rights and privileges have been slower to surface (and in fewer numbers at that). This is true even in somewhat more lenient countries like Turkey, where the somewhat more tolerant and cosmopolitan nature of cities like Istanbul have shown some progress but still lag behind other locales. This has compelled gay, transgender and bisexual individuals to continue to lead more subdued lives than their Western counterparts, keeping low profiles and even unwillingly engaging in traditional marriages to give themselves socially acceptable cover, particularly in more rural and remote areas.

This is Not Me tells the story of unhappy gay men who have had to marry women to hide their sexual orientation in the face of societal and family pressure in Turkey, and their own internal conflicts. The three main characters of the film, Mustafa, Mehmet and Yusuf migrated to Istanbul from small towns and come from conservative families. The film reveals each characters’ world: exhausted from continually playing at social roles and lying about their identity, faltering between their reality and their dreams, frustrated and stuck in their lives. It also looks at the subject from the aspect of women who are the other victims of these marriages. Mehmet and Yusuf, both married to women, act the part of heterosexual males and family men within their own social circles. Privately, however, they are passionately in love with their male lovers and can only live their truth within the parallel lives they have built with them. The driving character of the film, Mustafa, is Mehmet’s lover of 15 years. They share their views about the process of coming out, how to deal with the frustrations of arranged cover marriages with wives and children, their ambivalence about balancing personal dreams with the strictures of social conformity and a host of related subjects about how to live the lives they want for themselves.

I like LGBTQ stories based in Turkey, given that I lived there; but I also felt like this documentary was too much talk without much deeper meaning to it. Sure, we do hear stories about these closeted men trying to do the right thing for themselves, for their wife and their lover and how the society doesn't make it easy. We see face of only one guy who was actually even physically abused by his lover, but we never go deep into it on why are you they still together after 15 years. What is it like being openly gay in city like Istanbul. The film is more focused from their family perspective or their internalized homophobia which is evident because two of three protagonists don't even show their faces. This film could have been so much more, especially being based in a city like Istanbul , which should have shown many different facets of the city. Towards the end it just shows snippets of gay pride and a belly dancer in a bar. The stories shown here are not unheard of but was there any depth or purpose behind making this documentary; I am not sure. (3.5/10)