DIPLOMA THESIS

Existantialism and Cinema

Hakan Sarolu Film Directing Dept.

Budapest
2017
 Budapest Metropolitan University

THESIS
The existantialist references in the Inside of Zeki
Demirkubuz

Budapest
2017
 Abstract

1. Keywords

Existantialism
Literature
Cinema
Philosophy

2. Pieces of literature

CROWELL, STEWEN: The Cambridge Companion to Existantialism. New York,

Cambridge University Press, 2012
APPIGNANESI, RICHARD - ZARATE OSCAR: Introducing Existantialism a
Graphic Guide. London, Icon Books Ltd., 2013
YANAT, YELDA: The Analysis of Zeki Demirkubuz Cinema In Terms of
Existantialism. Istanbul, Master Degree Thesis, Istanbul Uni. Social Sciences
Institute, 2008
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR M.: Complete Works of Dostoyevsky. Delphi
Classics, 2014
 3. Concise Summary

Zeki Demirkubuz, as being one of the leading names of independant cinema in Turkey, has
been under great influence of existantialism and its reflection on literature. That influence
shows itself from the way he looks at life and the films that he made which are extension
of that perspective. The great existantialist writers who left masterpieces in literature such
as Dostoyevsky, Sartre and Albert Camus, have always been a major thinking guide since
he has met with their books when he was 18 years old in prison.

As being an auteur director, Demirkubuz wrote and directed 11 featured films . Three of
these eleven films were film adaptations of novels from existantialist literature into todays
Turkish society. These novels are The Stranger, Notes from Underground and
Nausea. But the connection of Demirkubuz and existantialist thinking is not only
reflected within these three films. From his first film to the last one, there is a significant
influence of the literature in Demirkubuz work.

As an audience, for achieving to understand the essence of Zeki Demirkubuz films and
what is making them authentic, it is crucial to analize and find their references in the
extistantialist literature pieces.

April 12, 2017

 Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1
2. EXISTANTIALIST PHILOSOPHY. ..................................................................................... ..3
3. EXISTANTIALIST LITERATURE ...................................................................................... ..5
3.1. Biography of Dostoyevsky ................................................................................................... ..7
3.1.1. Notes From Underground .................................................................................................. ..8
3.1.2. Crime and Punishment ....................................................................................................... ..9
3.2. Biography of Jean-Paul Sartre.............................................................................................. 11
3.2.1. La Nausea ............................................................................................................................ 11
3.3. Biography of Albert Camus .................................................................................................. 16
3.3.1. The Stranger ........................................................................................................................ 17
4. ZEKI DEMIRKUBUZ ............................................................................................................. 18
4.1. Inside ....................................................................................................................................... 19
4.2. Story......................................................................................................................................... 20
5. CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 24
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 28
 1

1) INTRODUCTION

During the history of philosophy, there have been various point of views about when,
where and how existantialism was born and raised. According to different approaches,
some authorities are claiming that it has been a constantly developing concept since
Socrates (470-399 B.C) to todays shape, while the other theories are suggesting that first
appearance of existantialist thinking has taken its place in 16th century by Shakespeares
lines in Hamlet, To be, or not to be: that is the question1 then grow its ideological
body in 19th century by Kierkegaards words, and reached to an undeniable scale within
the literary works of Dostoyevsky who later on followed by Kafka, Sartre, Camus and
Milan Kundera. Naturally, it has always been a contreversial issue that whether or not the
literature has been the leading source to existantialist philosophy during the history.

On the other hand, the World of cinema which has been fed by literature during its history,
could not stay far from this movement happening in literature and plenty of existantialist
novels have been adapted into films from hollywood to europe and all over the world.

As Yelda Yanat stated, The Turkish cinema, which has started to raise with the first
Turkish film that has been shot in 1914 about the demolition of Russian monument2
Within the following years, Turkish cinema tried to find its way by following european
cinema. In 1960, a film by Metin Erksan called as Dry Summer3 became the first
Turkish film who won awards in international film festivals.

Despite of this new page in the history of Turkish cinema, the mainstream cinema kept its
vast domination till 1990s. At that date, Zeki Demirkubuz stepped in the stage by ignoring
all the rules and expectations that were created and forced by the mainstream cinema in
Turkey. And just like the effect of Dostoyevsky in existantialist literature, after the films of
Zeki Demirkubuz, the independant filmmaking in Turkey has reached to a visible level
with a conscious and determination.

1
SHAKESPEARE, W.: Hamlet. Chicago, Ainsworth Company, 1902. p. 67
2
YANAT, YELDA: The Analysis of Zeki Demirkubuz Cinema In Terms of Existantialism. Istanbul, Master
Degree Thesis, Istanbul Uni. Social Sciences Institute, 2008. p. 1
3
EBIRI, BILGE: Dry Summer: The Laws Of Nature. CRITERION,
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2991-dry-summer-the-laws-of-nature April 5, 2017
 2

During the research process of my thesis, I found out that a research4 by Yelda Yanat
which has the aim for finding the references passed from existantialist philosophy to films
of Zeki Demirkubuz has already been made. However, I realized that it should be
expanded and completed. Firstly, the research focused mainly on the philosophical
movement by not mentioning its reflection on literature which is the main area that the
director has been affected. Jeff Malpas mentions that, While one approach to
existantialism is through the philosophical works that make it up, another approach is
surely through the literary works that represent a parallel, and sometimes alternative, mode
of articulation and expression.5 Secondly, Yelda Yanats research is not containing the
comparison of recent films that Zeki Demirkubuz made such as Inside (2012), Nausea
(2015) and Ember (2016).

Zeki Demirkubuz meets with existantialist thinking when he was 18 years old in prison.
Later on, he works in building constructions to gain money for moving to Istanbul and then
he starts to sell various things from books to clothes in the streets of Istanbul. One day, by
a coincidental offer of one of his friend, he starts to work in film sets as a driver. After a
while, he starts to realize his interest into filmmaking and starts to work as a directors
asisstant. At the end, he coincidentally decides to make a film and that beginning leads
him to complete 11 featured films till today and each of them are carrying strong signature
of existantialism.

Eventhough he might look like dealing with different stories and problems from his first
film C-Blok (1994) to his last film Kor (2016), infact, the stories of Zeki Demirkubuz are
carrying the essence of same type of searching and standing about humans and their
problems without regarding whether they are good or bad.

As if proving what Jean Renoir once said "A director makes only one movie in his life.
Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.6 Zeki Demirkubuz continues to question
the same existantial problems in each of his film such as the themes counted by Steven
Crowell, Authenticity, commitment, angst, death, alienation, nothingness, the absurd...7
It is also not a coincidence to see that every film of Demirkubuz are containing literary

4
YANAT, YELDA: The Analysis of Zeki Demirkubuz Cinema In Terms of Existantialism. Istanbul, Master
Degree Thesis, Istanbul Uni. Social Sciences Institute, 2008
5
CROWELL, STEWEN: The Cambridge Companion to Existantialism. New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2012. p. 292
6
https://writerswrite.co.za/literary-birthday-15-september-jean-renoir/ April 5, 2017
7
CROWELL, STEWEN: The Cambridge Companion to Existantialism. New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2012. p. 4
 3

quotations while some of his films screenplays are directly adapted from the novels of
Dostoyevsky, Sartre and Albert Camus. However, as a filmmaker, Demirkubuz is not using
the literature only as a capital for his screenplays. He is not borrowing them. In contrast,
he is putting the literature into the center essence of his films and pointing to his audience
with respect about where the real reference is located. He has an experimental approach
against inter-disciplinary working system between cinema and literature.

The purpose of this research will be the brief examination of existantialism in literature by
focusing on three significant names such as Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus and Sartre whom
have always been the leading figures for thinking and storytelling in Demirkubuz life. For
achieving my goal, in the 1st part of my thesis, I will make the brief definition of
existantialism, and how it has developed as a philosophy. Then, I will focus on its
reflection on literature by examining the life and novels of the three names that I
mentioned above. In the 2nd part of my thesis, I will write the treatmant of Inside 8. It is
the nineth featured film of Demirkubuz, which is an adaptation from a Dostoyevkys
novel. Afterwards, I will analyse the story from the existantialist point of view for finding
out how the director is requestioning the same themes and problems in todays world as the
existantialist writers were doing in literature during the 19th and 20th century.

While the existantialism is the verbal speaker of the nothingness of life and its relation
with the weak human beings, the films of Zeki Demirkubuz are the pictures of that verbal
speaker, but at the same time beyond of it.

2) EXISTANTIALIST PHILOSOPHY

Existantialism, within the works of Kierkegaard in the 19th century, came out as a
reaction to the dominant systematical philosophy developed by Hegel. Malpas mentions
the promoter contributions of existantialism by mentioning its nineteenth century
precursors such as Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky, and, second, the German philosophers, -
especially Heidegger, who provided much of its conceptual underpining- then
existantialism nevertheless names what is still a fairly circumscribed body of thought and
work.9 After the German philosophers, existantialism continued to grow its body of

8
http://zekidemirkubuz.com/Movie.aspx?MovieID=9 April 5, 2017
9
CROWELL, STEWEN: The Cambridge Companion to Existantialism. New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2012. p. 292
 4

thought by the student of Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre. And this is how the existantialist
journey started to take its place to be discussed in the famous cafes of Paris.

As a systematical philosophy, the existantialism has been firstly proceeded by Martin

Heideggers book, Time and Being. During and after the 2nd World war years, Sartre
started to develop his own interpretation about existantialist philosophy by applying the
existantialist thinking into his novels, essays and plays. After Sartres first novel10 was
published, the existantialist philosophy started to officially spread around the world into
different fields other than philosophy such as literature, cinema and theater.

At the end of 2nd world war, the existantialist movement was already introduced by Sartre
as a field of literature. This literature field, revolved around the thinking that refers to how
human beings despairly find life absurd and tasteless by not being able to understand the
environment surrounding them, eventhough the only real thing is the existance of humanity
and his freedom.

Its because the existantialist thinking gives bigger important to the existance of individual
than the self, it also contains a reaction to the society. Existantialism holds humanity free
in all his choices -including his weaknesses- and tries to understand and find a meaning for
the self. To put in other way, it is a sort of questioning of the selfs destiny and seeing this
action as a humanistic need.

For making an average definition, existantialism suggests that the human beings firstly
exist, and then they re-create theirselves by their choices and actions through the life. By
the beginning of the industrial evolution, the term of alienation which refers the
alienation of human beings to their nature has been suggested by the Marx. And today, as
Yelda Yanat stated: Modern people are born in a public hospital clinic birth, and from
there into the slot, the slot to school, or after undergoing a factory or an office. Modern
man no longer sustain his life. Often not even death itself.11 In case the idea of Modern
man is often not even decision taker in the death itself sounds exagerating, it would be
useful to ask and remind ourselves that Were the soldiers who joined to Vietnam war died
because of their choice?.

10
La Nausee is a philosophical novel written by Jean-Paul Sartre, published in 1938.
11
YANAT, YELDA: The Analysis of Zeki Demirkubuz Cinema In Terms of Existantialism. Istanbul, Master
Degree Thesis, Istanbul Uni. Social Sciences Institute, 2008. p. 6
 5

On the other hand, it wouldnt be so correct to claim that there is a conciliation about the
question of what is existantialism?. Through the history of thinking, many thinkers have
been dealt with this question from various different perspectives. To begin with Weili, he
answers that question by suggesting the existantialism as a crisis, Mouniers answer is
despair, Hamel thinks that it is anxiety, Banfi describes existantialism as pesimism,
according to Wahl it is an uprising, Marcel suggests that existantialism is the way that
bring us to freedom, Lukacs thinks that it is an idealism while Bendamir claims that it is
irrationalism and Foulqui sees as philosophy of nonesense12.

To get the essence of the average definition of existantialism which has been done in the
above, its important to mention what does existantialism mean for Sartre. According to
Sartre, the existantialism suggests the thinking of how human beings have been thrown to
worlds of objects by including conscious and will. This is why, the existantialist thinking
believes in the freedom of human and his free will by suggesting that everyone is
responsible from their actions. Sartre describe this thinking by saying man is
condemned to be free.13

To sum up, existantialism suggests that each individual is to draw their own destiny by
taking the neccessary decisions which will draw their identity and will keep them
responsible for it. In addition to this, existantialism sees this self re-creation as duty for
each individual by the time he starts to have a conscious about the existance of the self.
This duty was what Sartre had seen as one of the key things for France to be free from
Nazi occupation during the 2nd world war.

Since existantialism as a field of philosophy is a huge area of research, I will skip it in my

thesis by keeping this short and general definition, and I will focus on its reflection on
literature which were the major influence in both life and films of Zeki Demirkubuz.

3) EXISTANTIALIST LITERATURE

The philosophy which was suggesting that humans can build his own values and
future, has been influential in various fields of contemporary culture. Though, the

12
YANAT, YELDA: The Analysis of Zeki Demirkubuz Cinema In Terms of Existantialism. Istanbul, Master
Degree Thesis, Istanbul Uni. Social Sciences Institute, 2008. p. 4
13
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Existantialism and Human Emotions. New York, Philosophical Library, Inc.,
1957. p. 23
 6

expression of existantialist philosophy hasnt been more deep in anywhere else than the
literature. In addition to this, it wouldnt be so claimful to suggest that any philosophical
movement could not own that much space in literature either. This is why Steven Crowell
mentions Malpas who brings this huge effect even further and he argues that
existantialism is much a literary genre or style as it is a philosophical attitude. He
supports this with readings of existantialist precursors Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy-
and the literary output of Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus.14. On the other hand, Milan
Kundera suggests that, The novelist is neither historian nor prophet: he is an explorer of
existence.15

As I mentioned before, according to some authorities, the existance of existantialist

thinking has began to take its place in literature by the lines of Sheakespeare in the 16th
century to be or not be16 and reached to a tangible body within the novels of
Dostoyevsky during the 19th century, such as Notes From Underground, Crime and
Punishment, and Brothers Karamazov. Stewen Crowell explains this situation by saying
that Moreover, this literary emphasis might be taken to be evident from the very first in
the indirect character of Kierkegaards work, in Nietzches use of the figure of
Zarathustra, and in the importance that can be assigned to the novels of Dostoyevsky in
prefiguring themes in later existantialist thought.17

Dostoyevsky became leading influential to many existantialist writers borned in 20th

century such as Sartre, Camus, and Kafka. The authentic themes of contemporary
existantialism has continued both in plays and novels of Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, or in
The Stranger18 of Albert Camus. On the other hand, Kafka has also followed the
Kierkegaard in the The Trial19, by expressing the constant failure of humanity in the
search of truth which contains stability, safety and pureness. The Trial has been adapted
into film20 by Orson Welles in 1962 and since then, it has became one of the best film
adaption of existantialist literature in cinema.

14
CROWELL, STEWEN: The Cambridge Companion to Existantialism. New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2012. p. 16
15
KUNDERA, K.: The Art of the Novel. London, Faber & Faber, 1988, p. 44
16
SHAKESPEARE, W.: Hamlet. Chicago, Ainsworth Company, 1902. p. 67
17
CROWELL, STEWEN: The Cambridge Companion to Existantialism. New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2012. p. 294
18
A novel written by Albert Camus, published in 1942.
19
A novel written by Franz Kafka, published in 1925.
20
EBERT, ROGER: The Trial. ROGEREBERT, http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-trial-1963 April 5,
2017
 7

The themes such as tediousness, nausea, weakness of mind, nihilism, death, reasonless
evil, absurdity of life, hypocrisy, destiny, conscious and alienation have been expressed by
dramatical structures that are built in different ways by different existantialist writers in
literature. Since Zeki Demirkubuz has been dealing with the same themes in cinema as the
existantial literature, it is more than crucial to have a look at the novels of the existantialist
writers such as Dostoyevsky, Sartre and Camus who were the sources of film adaptations
that Demirkubuz has made. For this reason, to understand the essence of his films, we need
to put a mirror to the leading themes in his films and find their body in the existantialist
literature. So that, it can be possible to present the connections of the outsider figure
between Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Camus, and Inside of Zeki Demirkubuz.

3.1) Biography of Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Mihajlovic Dostoyevsky was born in the capital of Russia, Moscow, in

1821. He studied in a private school till he is 16 years old. After the death of his mother in
1837, he moved to St. Petersburg and started to study in a military engineering school. His
father had stroke twice after the death of his mother. Dostoyevsky graduated as engineer
from the military school but he has resigned from being soldier in 1844 by devoting
himself to being writer. Poor folk has became his first published novel in 1846.

He has been arrested during the rising resistance against the tsarist regime in Russia. He
was turned from the edge of being executed and he has been added to the list of Russian
writers who will be send for exile to Siberia. At the end of the years of prison and exile, he
turned back to his military identity. He has married with Mariya Dmitriyevna sayeva in
1957.

After moving to St. Petersburg, he wrote The Insulted and Humiliated in 1861 and The
House of The Dead in 1862. Then, he spent difficult years which have been followed by
epileptic seizures, addiction of gambling and gambling depts. Whereupon, he started to
write more autobiographical novels and he completed his masterpieces such as Notes
from Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Gambler (1866), The
Idiot (1868) and The Possesed (1872) during this harsh period.

He spent 2 years for completing his lifetime masterpiece Brothers of Karamazov (1876)
and he died in 1879. Since then, Dostoyevsky has been the leading figure in realism,
 8

pyschological novels and philosophical nihilism. He became influence on plenty of

thinkers and artists from various fields.

3.1.1) Notes from Underground

For many authorities, Notes from Underground has been seen as milestone within
the creativity of Dostoyevsky. Eventhough Dostoyevsky tells that The author of the diary
and the diary itself are, of course imaginary.21 in the introduction part of the novel, it
should not be difficult to understand the hidden irony under it and facing with the strong
autobiographical side of the novel.

Notes from Underground has a wearing questioning of personality which is developed

by the chains of confessions. The general opinion about the novel is that the acceptance of
it as the first existantialist novel which deeply deals with existantialism. On the other hand,
it is one of the major influence on both Sartre and Camus whom I will also be expressing
them later on my thesis. For instance, it should be hard to not being doubtful about Notes
From Underground was an inspiring motivation to Camus The Stranger.

In the novel, we face with the incapability of a desperate person who has a spiritual
bleeding from being in struggle for standing against his life. The story revolves around the
heroine who is more and more placing himself into the center of the underground while he
wants to scream his existence to the outside. Dostoyevsky spreads the seeds of many
philosophical and moral problems into this novel which will be repeated in his later works.

The nameless heroin of the novel, so to speak The Underground Man is similar to other
heroines of Dostoyevsky such as Raskolnikov or Brothers Karamazov. He is neither a
noble nor a little bourgeois which was the common profile of an anti-hero during that
years in literature.

The underground man is a simple officer guy who suffers from being humiliated by his
social environment. And eventually, he decides to revolt against his environment and the
social conditions. The underground man, becomes to involved in the system despite of his
anger, crises and indecisive state. The main chaos and despair of the underground man,
comes from his absurd and reasonless incapability about not resisting to being part of the

21
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR M.: Complete Works of Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground. Delphi
Classics, 2014. p. 887
 9

system that he hates. At the end, we realize the actual crisis of the obsessional heroine is
being in the center of vicious cycle by taking his place in the system that he hates.

Dostoyevsky presents the essence of his heroines rebel by dragging the reader into
paradoxical questions. Thanks to this novel by Dostoyevsky, which is very often accepted
as the first reflection of existantialism into literature, the reader meets with the ancestor
father of all anti heroes which has continued to be seen later in both the literature and
cinema.

3.1.2) Crime and Punishment

By this novel of Dostoyevsky, which is very oftenly accepted as the beginning of

his series of masterpieces, we find a chance to catch Dostoyevsky while he is dealing with
the questions such as How should we perceive and interpret the reality? What does mean
to be a man? What is the purpose of life? How should we behave to others? Does god
exist? through the journey of his heroine. Not surprisingly, in the upcoming novels of
Dostoyevsky, we find him again while he is continueing to ask similar questions with his
characters such as Kirilov who says If there is no god, then I am god.22 in The
Possessed or Ivan Karamazov who says One cannot exist in prison without God.23 in
Brothers Karamazov.

During the novel, Dostoyevsky is grabbing the inner storms of Raskolnikov and placing his
ideas under the microscope. Through the story, the reader face with the change in the
inncocent state of Raskolnikov by his action which crosses the line. What takes the interest
of Dostoyevsky during this process, is the things that Raskolnikov starts to live after
crossing the line rather than the crossing the line itself.

While there is an adventure of psychological tension in the first layer of the story, we see
the symbols and implications very oftenly in the second layer, which brings deep meanings
to the superficial events going on through the story. This intentional structure shows the
necessity to reader about interpreting the story of Raskolnikov as an inner search.

From the beginning to the end of the story, we become witnesses to the dilemma that
Raskolnikov is living between the two different worlds and perception of reality. He can

22
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR M.: Complete Works of Dostoyevsky, The Possessed. Delphi Classics, 2014.
pp. 2155-2156
23
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR M.: Complete Works of Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov. Delphi Classics,
2014. p. 2935
 10

not embrace any of these options as a solution. From one side, he sees the way which goes
to power by violance and violation and from the other side, he sees the way which goes to
salvation by suffering submissively like that of Jesus Christ. Raskolnikov is writhed by
have to make a choice between these two options. He both likes and hates these options at
the same time, just like as he hates when he first met with Sonya, but later on his emotions
directly turns into love. Sonya always stands in the corner of Raskolnikovs mind as a
submissived angelical person and in the corner of Dostoyevskys mind, Svidrigaylov
stands with his tendency to power and personal will.

One of the alternative endings that Dostoyevsky might have thought about Raskolnikov is
suicidal. We can see that idea by the several implications done during the story. On the
other hand, some people might find the actual ending poor in terms of creativity and
richness of writing. The sure thing is that Dostoyevsky is not interested into the solution or
to the details of the new life and he leaves that part to readers to think about and
completing it in their lives. Later on, this signature of Dostoyevsky leads onto the open
ending stories in cinema within the minimalist dramatical structure.24 During the history of
cinema, vast majority of art-house and independant movies including all films written and
directed by Zeki Demirkubuz- have been following the same dramatical structure by
finishing the story with an open ending.

To sum up, in the Dostoyevskys Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov kills a loan shark
woman in a good cause for people, and takes her money. He expresses his individual
reaction against the domination of society by saying They instinctively dislike history,
nothing but ugliness and stupidity in it, and they explain it all as stupidity! Thats why
they so dislike the living process of life; they dont want a living soul!25

Dostoyevsky draws a complicated and contradictory character with his heroine in the
Crime and Punishment. From one side, Raskolnikov is a renunciative and idealist young,
on the other side, he can easily kill a person. Is that shows us that only some people are
contradictory? Or is the human beings are carrying this condratictory feature in their
essence? The writer, makes the reader -for whom there is also a possibility to kill someone
if he is have to- partner to the crime of Raskolnikov and by the ending of the story he

24
MCKEY ROBERT: Story. New York, Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 1997, p. 48
25
DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR M.: Complete Works of Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment. Delphi
Classics, 2014. p. 1101
 11

leaves the reader alone with a difficult question. Can we make an evil thing for a good
cause?

3.2) Biography of Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris, in 1905. He lost his father when he was very
young and he met with Simone de Beauvoir in 1929. He worked as teacher in various high
schools. During the 2nd world war, he was arrested by the Germans. After he got back his
freedom, he had joined to the movement of resistance against the Nazi. He expressed his
anti-fascist ideas through his plays such as The Flies. On the other hand, he continued to
develop his existantialist ideas in Being and Nothingness during the Nazi occupied
France in 1943.

He has quit teaching in 1945, and founded a literaturical-political magazine Les Temps
Modernes. He dealt with literaturical and political problems by most of his books. After
the 2nd world war, he particularly stepped forward with his political activity. He supported
the SSCB, eventhough he sometimes criticized it. He expressed his disagreement by the
articles and essays that he wrote about the policies of France, regarding Algeria and its
other colonies. Especially between 1953 and 1958, he gave big struggle for this issue with
his writings in Les Temps Modernes. He joined actively to the 1961-62 protests in
France. In 1964, he didnt accept the Nobel literature prize by thinking that it would break
the coherency of his all work. He had a relationship with noted intellectual Simone de
Beauvoir.26

Between 1966 and 1967 he worked as head of Russel Court which was built for
questioning the massacres that happened during the Vietnam War. After the Soviet
intervention to Prag and student protests in France, he started to question his standing
about the Soviet Socialism. During that time, he got close with Maoists. He found the
Daily journal Liberation in 1973. Afterwards, his eyes lost its functionality in a critical
level and that caused a significant decrasing on his active productivity in the thinking field.
He died in 1980, in Paris.

3.2.1) La Nausea

This first novel of Sartre is accepted as the basis book of the existantialist thinking
for many authorities. Since Sartre also wrote many other novels which worth to talk about
26
http://www.biography.com/people/jean-paul-sartre-9472219 April 7, 2017
 12

it, it should be the correct approach to focus on the one which had the most relevant
influence on Zeki Demirkubuz and in his films27. In this piece of Sartre, by the dramatical
structure and the slow rythm of the language which was processing in a stable way,
captures the spirit of the reader just like the heroine of the novel, Antoine Roquentin. At
the end of the story, La Nausea turns itself into a clostrofobic space. At this point, the
reader faces with 2 options. The greatfullness of being free from the room, or living the
pain of being kept there. Within this binary complexity, Sartre is giving the similar feeling
to readers just like the binary conflict that Raskolnikov was living as I mentioned in the
analysing of the Crime and Punishment part in my thesis. The readers have also two
choices just like Dostoyevskys Raskolnikov. The first option is using the violence -like
Raskolnikov- and breaking the door of the room to get out, while there is the second option
which is choosing not to resist and staying there to suffer in a similar way than Jesus
Christ.

The heroine of the novel, Roquentin, is a completely philosophical character whom easily
can be placed to the top of existantial characters list. After several years of travelling,
while he is waiting for his girlfriend in Bouville, he is writing the life of an important
personality called as Adhmar de Rollebon. He is about to meet with Anna after long years
that they didnt see each other since they travelled the world together. During the 8 days of
waiting process of Roquentin, the story follows step by step what he is doing, thinking or
feeling. So, we walk the streets of Bouville with him, we observe the objects and people
through his eyes, we spend time in library in his mind. More we spend time with
Roquentin, more we start to think over and over again by sharing the questions and
feelings that is creating the feeling of nausee in Roquentins spirit.

The actual story starts after Roquentin decides to write down his ideas since he is thinking
a lot. He starts to keep a diary and by this diary the readers journey to the essence of La
Nausea starts. "The best thing would be to write down events from day to day. Keep a
diary to see clearly, let none of the nuances or small happenings escape even though they
might seem to mean nothing. And above all, classify them I must tell how I see this table,
this street, the people, my packet of tobacco, since those are the things which have
changed. I must determine the exact extent and nature of this change.28

27
Demirkubuz used the name of Sartres novel Nausea for his film that he wrote and directed in 2015.
http://zekidemirkubuz.com/Movie.aspx?MovieID=10 April 5, 2017
28
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Nausea. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962. p. 7
 13

The more Roquentin witnesses to the big problems with the things he perceives, the easier
it becomes to see the first signs of the alienation. Everytime Roquentin goes to library, he
runs into Ogier P. who is in constant attempt to read the books in the library. Before he
walks in to library, he expresses his feelings by saying that: For instance, there is
something new about my hands, a certain way of picking up my pipe or fork. Or else its
the fork which now has a certain way of having itself picked up, I dont know29 then, he
comes accros with the Ogier, and he tells that: "So a change has taken place during these
last few weeks. But where? It is an abstract change without object. Am I the one who has
changed? If not, then it is this room, this city and this nature, I must choose.30

The change we face with Roquentin here is not only a biological change as in the case of
spiderman had after being biten in the museum, but more an ontological change as it is in
Kafkas novel, Metamorphosis. Is it now the objects that are being alienated or the
Roquentin? The objects are not being evaluated with their essences but their existences.
The phenemonology is not the case. Maybe it can be claimed that the fork is changing
with a look from outside and its behaving different, or it can be said that the existence of
the fork is coming before its essence.

In the climax point of the novel, Roquentin looks at the root of a tree and the
unconsciousness of the tree about its own existance gives troubling feelings to Roquentin.
That pulls him to face with the result that his existance is for himself. Thus, a scary
loneliness and feeling of nausee starts to capture the existence of Roquentin. The basis of
the book seems as one of the result of this change which is the change in the awareness of
Roquentin against the changing environment that he is surrounding by. Speaking of the
surrounding environment, its better to see what Roquentin feels about them: Objects
should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live
among them, they are useful, nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid
of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts.31

Roquentin is constantly pushing us to think about the existence of the objects by saying
that they should not be touch. Is Roquentin saying that objects should not touch because
they dont have life in them or is it a wish that they would have life in them and could have
touched? Later on, we see that the objects are becoming something scary as if they are one

29
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Nausea. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962. p. 11
30
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Nausea. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962. p. 12
31
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Nausea. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962. p. 19
 14

of the alive predatory animals. Maybe the essence is the thing which is that much
affecting Roquentin. He sees as his own problem that the dynamism of objects will not
come out by not being depended on a subject. By this point, Roquentin looks like a child
who is scared of the beast that he created in his mind.

There is a bar that Roquentin often goes and time to time makes love with the owner of this
bar. He is listening music there or eating while he is maintaining his constant observing
state. I marvel at these young people drinking their coffee, they tell clear, plausible
stories. If they are asked what they did yesterday, they arent embarassed, they bring you
up to date in a few words. If I were in their place, Id fall over myself. Its true that no one
has bothered about how I spend my time for a long while.32

It is necessary to question the importance of what we do while we are alone. For example,
even a dinner becomes tasteless and less important if we are eating alone. However, we eat
more heartily with a better taste if we have a good company. To put in other way, are we
equally important for ourselves as what we do with others? We can not know where our
conscious can drag us while we are alone. To know this, we should think of it, but it is
boring to think this. Thats what brings the feelling of nausee which can be also called as
the pain of existing. The nausee, catches Roquentin while he is drinking alchol in the cafe.
For a second, Roquentin feels like he dont know where he is or what he is doing. Then he
starts to listen the music playing in the cafe, "Some of these days You'll miss me honey"33
and the nausee gets over, because the thoughts get lost.

Sartre is not building the story only by depending on a philosophical structure. The reader
is constantly witnessing to the simplicity of Roquentins daily routine by reading the
ordinary things he is doing within a successfully described visual world that is surrounding
him. For example during a little moment when Roquentin is looking at a mirror: "I tear
myself from the window and stumble across the room, I glue myself against the looking
glass, I stare at myself, I disgust myself, one more eternity."34 What happens when the
existences reflect each other? We see the reflection of ourselves in the mirror and the
reflection sees its reflecting existence from our eye till that reflection goes to inifinity.

32
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Nausea. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962. p. 15
33
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Nausea. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962. p. 234
34
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Nausea. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962. p. 46
 15

At the end, Roquentin finds himself thinking that the best is not being aware of any
existence and he leaves himself to the bed. The outside world, so called city, becomes
unbreathable for Roquentin. But the place he runs with hope to end this feeling and get
some oxygen, which is his little room, brings him the same feeling as the outside. This is
why Roquentin finds the only exit by leaving himself to bed and closing his eyes. It seems
that there is no peace in anywhere where Roquentin stands with his conscious. Maybe,
he finds the easy solution in temporary deactivation of his mind by sleeping? This is highly
possible. Or could suicide be a radical solution? Sartre might not focused on that idea too
much but i will have opportunity to mention that possibility in the Albert Camus part in
my thesis.

Sartre presents us the story in an adventurous way. Adventure is not a planned travel. It is
just something happens to human. What I see in La Nausea is the inner reactions and
feeling of nausee that Roquentin is getting against his adventure. We, the human beings,
also live a sort of adventure without knowing what will happen to us. Roquentin assumes
that maybe he is living an adventure which might end with his death. The travels that he
made years ago was also an adventure and this is why maybe he has nostalghic feelings
about his past but not sort of a wish to live it again. Those travels are over. Those years
that he was writing letters by typing the date as 1924, 1925 or 1926 have been
passed as fast as he wrote them. To live is a that kind of thing for Roquentin. When we
explain something happened to us, we describe it according to the ending of that event, not
in a way of an adventure. That is the thing which is bringing the problem about not dealing
with the time as a whole. Roquentin seems like always living a single moment.

Nothing has changed and yet everthing is different. I cant describe it, its like the Nausea
and yet its just the opposite at last an adventure happens to me and when I question
myself, I see that it happens that I am myself and that I am here, I am the one who splits
the night, I am happy as the hero of a novel.35 The adventure is not the same thing
anymore within the changing of many things. The adventure that Sartre puts forward with
Roquentin, is a travel to the world of objects which has same perception by human beings
but has different essence depending on the person who is observing. Roquentin catches that
difference by his existence and this is how his surrounding environment starts to become

35
SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL: Nausea. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1962. p. 76
 16

flu. What leads to the flu looking streets, people or the birds that are increasing its fluness
by every step of Roquentin? The answer is written in the cover of the book, La Nausea.

While the Roquentin is preparing himself to leave the Bouville where he spent his time by
questioning his existence, there was still the stones, women, cafes, and ruins in his mind.
He plans to move to Paris but maybe he has a hidden intention to run away from the things
that makes him feel nausee. Whether he has such a hidden intention or not, he certainly
knows that he will be existing in same way by carrying the same conscious in Paris too;
just like the same buildings, same stones and same women will be surrounding him in the
same way than the Bouville.

3.3) Biography of Albert Camus

Albert Camus was born in Algeria, in 1957. He raised by a working class family from
Alsace. His mother was not able to read or write. He lost his father in the 1st world war
and started to primary school in 1918. By the help of his teacher, he got a scholarship and
registered to high school. He has been active with sportive hobbies such as swimming and
boxing but he had to quit both of them after he was catched by tuberculosis. He studied
philosophy in Algeria. In 1930s he started to read the French thinkers books. He married
in 1934 but his marriage didnt last longer than 2 years and he divorced in 1936. In the
same year, he received his higher education diploma.

He joined to the young leftist intellectuals group in Algeria. Later on, he became member
of Comunist Party during a year between 1934 and 1935. He wrote and directed plays
for the Labor Theater. Before the 2nd world war, he worked as writer, broadcasting
director asisstant and political reporter in a journal called as Alger Republicain. During
this period, he also wrote critics on literature.

He moved to Paris in 1940 and became broadcasting director of a daily newspaper called
as Combat. Afterwards, he took a break from his interest into journalism and turned back
to the literature. He published his first novel, The Stranger in 1942. His second novel
The Plague has been published in 1947. In particular, he dealt with themes such as evil,
alienation, loneliness and simply the emotions that are created by the crisis of knowing
everything is going to end up with death. He wrote Lhomme Revolte in 1951 and La
Chute in 1956.
 17

He draw the basis of a humanism that refuses the harsh parts of both the Christianity and
Marxism. He received the Nobel literature prize in 1957. He died in 1960, by a tragic car
accident with his publisher Michel Gallimard.36

3.3.1) The Stranger

The book consists of 2 parts. In the 1st part, the reader meets with the Mersault, so
called The Stranger. And the main theme is being expressed in the 2nd part. Mersault is
the heroine of the story who is an officer and the one living the events that are being
expressed in the book. As soon as starting to read the story of Mersault, it is not hard to
realize the clear, objective perspective and the alienated mood that he has against life. That
is even showing itself in the first sentence of the book. Mother died today. Or, maybe,
yesterday; I cant be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED
AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter
doubtful, it could have been yesterday.37

Whereupon, Mersault goes to the Marengo which is 80 km far from where he lives and he
waits for a day with his mother. While he is waiting next to his mothers corpse, he drinks
coffee with milk and smokes with a nurse who is working there. At that time, he doesnt
know that this attitude of him will be against him later on.

Friends of Mersaults mother arrive to the hospital around midnight, and they all wait in
super silence next to the corpse till the morning. The funeral ceremony is done in the next
morning and Mersault goes back to where he lives.

Mersault comes across with Marie, who was his ex-colleague. He spends a good time with
Marie whom formerly he had emotional feelings for her. Marie always daydreams about
marriage plans while Mersault never has such an idea. One day, Mersault goes to a beach
house with his friends. Meanwhile, a friend of him, Raymond, is in trouble with several
Algerian guys. These Algerian guys follow them and they face with them in the beach.
Within a second, without nobodys understanding whats happening, Mersault grabs
Raymonds gun and kills one of the Algerian guys. Whereupon an investigation starts
about the murder, and the state assigns a lawyer for Mersault. After the several months of
investigation process, the trial begins and the court decides to execute of Mersault.

36
http://www.biography.com/people/albert-camus-9236690 April 7, 2017
37
CAMUS, ALBERT: The Stranger. New York, Vintage Books, Inc., 1958. p. 1
 18

The novel draws attention to two concepts such as the alienation and absurd. It is about the
choice of the heroine who pushed the society away from him (not pushed away by the
society) and is sentenced to be executed by the society because of this choice.

Albert Camus, argues the possibility of meaningful life by moving from the suicide
adventure of an individual. According to Camus, suicide is the only important
philosophical problem. While he is dealing with this problem, he exhibits the despair of
humanity against the things such as death, the inner nausee, boredom, anxiety and
contradictory of life, basically the absurdity. Nevertheless, despite of all these, he doesnt
propose suicide as the last station to arrive. As he expressed this later, in case of Sisyphus,
who has been punished by gods to carry the rock to the top of a hill, and every time he
reaches top, the rock falls back to the beginning of the hill38. Camus doesnt see suicide as
a solution for Sisyphus. Maybe, it is because, within the endless punishment of Sisyphus,
meaning is given to Sisyphus existence by its nothingness?39 The destiny of human is to
live the life by knowingly the absurdity of it, and so that revolting against this
meaninglessness.

The Stranger, shows us the existance of meaning by its heroine who thinks and feels that
everyhting is meaningless and absurd. In this way, Camus demonstrates the negation of
meaninglessness by enlighting the concepts such as life, death, society, justice,
otherization, murder, love, habit and punishment. In contrast to his heroine, he stands up
for the duty of continueing to struggle by existing against the absurdity of life, just like
Sisyphus. Albert Camus, places the humanism and love of life into the basis of his
absurdist philosophy.

4) ZEKI DEMIRKUBUZ
Zeki Demirkubuz was born in Isparta, Turkey, in 1964. As it is stated in Wikipedia,
Demirkubuz dropped out of high school, and started working in a textile workshop. Then,
he worked as a street vendor for some time.40 Later on, he involved into leftist community
and was arrested when he was 17 years old during the 1980 coup detat in Turkey. He
started to work as a driver in film sets. But his increasing interest into filmmaking, brought

38
CAMUS, ALBERT: The Myth of Sisyphus. New York, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc.,
1991. p. 119
39
APPIGNANESI, RICHARD - ZARATE OSCAR: Introducing Existantialism. London, Icon Books Ltd.,
2013. p. 34
40
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeki_Demirkubuz April 5, 2017
 19

him from being driver to being asisstant director. In the official personal website of
Demrirkubuz, it states that He began his film career as assistant director to Zeki kten in
1986, and worked as assistant director for various directors41 until making Block-C (C
Blok, 1994), his first feature film. After this first film, Demirkubuz continued to work as
an auteur and independent filmmaker writing his own original screenplays. Film critics and
international audiences noticed Demirkubuz with his second film, Innocence (Masumiyet,
1997) which was screened at Venice Film Festival42 His third featured film has been
The Third Page (1999) which was depending on a real story that he read in the third page
of a newspaper. Afterwards, he continued to his auteur career with Fate (2001), Confession
(2001), The Waiting Room (2003), Destiny (2006), Envy (2009), Inside (2012), Nausea
(2015), and Ember (2016)43.

4.1) Inside

After the 11 featured films written and directed by Zeki Demirkubuz, it is not really
hard to see that Dostoyevskys44 himself has always been his biggest heroine. In each of
these 11 films, the director is being fed by the world of Dostoyevsky and he is giving shape
to his content with Dostoyevskys basis concepts. Especially, he is staying under the debris
of the concepts such as crime and punishment. On the other hand, the existantialism
is also standing up as one of the leading effect which gives direction to his films. It is
possible to see the stability of this perspective is proved when Demirkubuz made his
own adaptation of Camus The Stranger. And not surprisingly, he does the same sort of
free interpretation with his 9th featured film, Inside (2012).

The Inside has been presented as todays adaptation of Dostoyevskys novel, The Notes
From Underground. But to be more specific, Zeki Demirkubuz is mostly interested in the
second part of the book. It is true that he is injecting some characteristic features to
perspective of his heroine that he detected from the first part of the book. Though, his main
interest is being the second part of the book which is called as A Propos of The Wet
Snow. Demirkubuz is following the story with its general structure according to this part
but of course by not forgetting to let his personal interventions.

41
http://en.academicresearch.net/the-analysis-of-zeki-demirkubuz-cinema-in-term-of-existentialism/11/
42
http://zekidemirkubuz.com/About.aspx April 5, 2017
43
http://www.izdiham.com/jean-paul-sartre-bulanti-kitabindan-alintilar/
44
http://www.cafrande.org/dostoyevski-ne-kadar-cok-anladiysam-kadar-derinlerine-battim/
 20

4.2) Story

Muharrem, 38 years old, bored looking single man, who is an officer, wakes up in
the evening by hardly breathing. He looks like in trance and then he finds himself in the
street. Muharrem looks at buildings, cars and people walking in the street. Meanwhile he
realizes that he is standing in front of a game center. He gets in and one by one watches the
games that people are playing. He comes back home and makes an omelette which consists
of four eggs. He watches a documentary about the mating of ink fishes and pushes out his
cigarette on the left omelette that he ate. Muharrem is in bed and turning from left to right
with reasonless boredom.

Turkan, 34 years old, weary looking cleaner who is mother of three children, cleans the
Muharrems apartment in the morning. Meanwhile, for a moment, she looks like going to
start crying. She prepares the brekfast of Muharrem by negatively answering to his
omelette demand. Muharrem understands that somethings wrong with her and they talk.
Turkan grumbles about the building manager, Mr. Aslan, 55 years old, single, disabled
man. She explains how Aslan is torturing her when she goes there to clean his apartment.
She says that he is using her as if she is a slave and she adds that He is also howling till
the morning and that is pulling whole the street dogs to the building. Howling directly
takes the interest of Muharrem but he doesnt believe in that. Muharrem says that He was
probably drunk. However, Turkan makes her story more credible by using probating
details and Muharrem seems convinced at the end.

At the same day, when Muharrem leaves the building to go to his work, he stops for a
moment in front of the Aslans apartment and starts howling. Muharrem continues howling
in the car with his colleagues, and all of his colleagues look at him with annoyed faces by
him.

The inner voice of Muharrem says that A rational man could not have pride if he is not
merciless towards himself. As for me, I had no mercy on myself because of my infinite
pride. Meanwhile, we see Muharrem while he is staring at one of his tough-looking
colleague who is sitting in the other corner of the office. His colleague starts to stare back
at him with an increasing agressiveness in his face, and at the end Muharrem turns back to
his computer.
 21

Muharrem goes to visit his old friends from college that he is not in touch since long time.
He does that despite he knows that he is doing an unnecessary thing. Three of his friends
sit in one corner of the room and he sits in the other corner. He looks at the poster of Che
Guevera on the wall and then looks back at his old friends. He hears that there is a
celebration plan about Cevat, 38 years old good looking man, who is a well known writer.
Muharrem and Cevat have troublesome friendship because Muharrem was calling Cevat as
thief by meaning that he is not writing his own stories. Muharrem asks the reason of
celebration and he learns that Cevat will go to Istanbul for receiving a literature prize about
his last novel. Nobody invites Muharrem to this celebration but he convinces his friends
for joining the event by promising that he will not create any trouble.

Muharrem arrives home. While he is reading the newspaper, he realizes an article about
Cevats new novel and he furiously throws the newspaper away. He goes to bed with
boredom. He smells his armpit and underwear in the silence of the night. When he is about
to sleep, he hears a noisy music coming from outside. He walks to his balcony and sees
that there is a party in the other building. He screams at them to decrease the volume but
nothing changes. He goes back to bed, trying to sleep but he sees that its impossible. He
grabs some eggs from the kitchen and tries to throw it to the window of the party house.
However, he can not achieve to hit the window with the eggs. He tries again by getting
some big potatoes and breaks the window in the first shot. Some screaming sounds of
people come from the party house and Muharrem immediately goes back to his room by
leaving the balcony.

Turkan is cleaning the apartment in the morning. Muharrem has breakfast by looking at the
standing potato on the table. The inner voice of Muharrem says that A secret fight
between myself and everything else started. I wasnt someone whod pay attention to that
secret fight.

When Muharrem is about to leave home to go to work, he sees Turkan cleaning the carpet
and he looks at her body. In the evening, Muharrem has sex with several hookers. And
during his purposeless night tour in the dangerous parts of the city, his inner voice says that
With an insatiable desire for the shameful, I started to wander in dark places. He comes
back at home in the early morning and sleeps after he made masturbation.

Muharrem wakes up with the potato in his hand and he smells it. When Turkan gets in the
apartment to make the cleaning, she sees the potato and starts to be worried about the
 22

mental state of Muharrem. In the evening, Muharrem looks very enthusiastic when he is
reading Nietzches Thus Spoke Zarathustra. For a moment, he suddenly stands up with
the book and shouts as Thats it! Thats it!.

Muharrem goes to a sports center and watches the women whom are doing sport. In the
evening, Turkan knocks his door and says that she is fired by Mr. Aslan. Muharrem goes to
talk with the Aslan to change his opinion. Next day, Turkan knocks the door of Muharrem
again with a contract that she received by Mr. Aslan. Muharrem reads the contract and says
that This guy wants you to be his slave. Turkan says that He also asked me to stop
talking with that annoying man. Muharrem gets into a rage by finding out that Mr. Aslan
is meaning Muharrem with the annoying man. At the end, Muharrem says that This
man is in love with you. Turkan gets angry at this idea and then Muharrem proposes her
to kill the Aslan by letting him fall down from the stairs when she is taking care of him.
Muharrem says that, Police might be forcing you a bit with their questions, but if you
keep crying by saying it was nothing but an accident, no one can charge you for anything.
In the evening, Muharrem has a nightmare which includes his college friends and Cevat.
He spends a sleepless night.

Next day, Muharrem goes to work and while he is in the toilet, he gives a big fight against
himself in front of the mirror for not joining to Cevats celebration night. At the end he
looks like he convinced himself for not going there. He also finds it motivational to think
that by not joining to the meeting, he could be insulting them. However, Muharrem finds
himself in the restaurant at 7 p.m. and he learns from the waitress that the reservation is
booked for 8 p.m. He gets angry with this information since nobody didnt inform him
about the changing of meeting time. He decides to get wine and wait for them by staring
thoughtfully at the potato that he lately started to carry with him.

At the end his friends arrive and they start to eat. Muharrem tells Cevat that there is not
much change in his life and he is continueing to work as an officer. Cevat asks whether he
is still writing or not and Muharrem answers by saying that No, I dont do that anymore.
The writing is not for me. The dialogues between Cevat and Muharrem goes on very thin
ice. Everyone in the table looks stressful against each new question and answer between
Cevat and Muharrem. When the old days memories start to be talked, the tension starts to
increase gradually. Cevat says to Muharrem that Look, you are becoming touchy again.
We want you to understand that we dont bear a grudge against you. We never did.
 23

Muharrem gets annoyed by hearing the We all the time and tells that You may have a
common opinion about me. But I get confused when you talk about yourselves as a single
person. Its difficult to decide who to look at when I speak. It would be better if everyone
spoke for himself. If everyone has his own opinions. The dialogues between Cevat and
Muharrem goes on by quotings from Dostoyevsky that they answer to each other. For a
moment, Muharrem answers by his own aphorismic sentence and meanwhile Cevat starts
to search his pockets. Muharrem hands a pencil to Cevat and Cevat asks that How did you
understand that Im looking for pencil? and Muharrem answers by saying that You used
to do the same formerly. After a while, Muharrem becomes drunk and he makes a speech
that he expresses all the hatred and disagreement that he has about the personalities of his
old friends.

Finally, Muharrem falls into sleep in the table and the rest of the group passes to Real
Madrid Hotel to continue the celebration with hookers. Muharrem wakes up and takes a
taxi. When the taxi arrived to his adress, he changes his mind and decides to go to Real
Madrid Hotel. During the trip he regretfully shouts himself by saying Why the hell did I
join to that damn dinner. He arrives to the hotel and he starts to run in the corridors of
hotel by screaming as Thief Cevat, Thief Sheakespeare and I feel disgust about all of
you. The security crew of the hotel stop and kick him away from the hotel. He vomits
after he left the hotel and then he goes to an apartment of a hooker. The electricity is off in
the apartment. They light up some candles and talk about the death. The hooker talks while
she is looking at the potato of Muharrem. Muharrem gets close to the hooker by howling at
her. At the end, Muharrem starts to behave as if he is a wolf and he gets close to hooker.
The hooker gets scared and she pushes him away. Muharrem falls and crashes his head
badly. After that, he gets dressed without saying anything. He writes his phone number to a
paper and gives it to the hooker by asking her to call him if she is in any trouble.
Muharrem leaves the apartment and the electricity comes back.

Turkan lets Mr. Aslan to fall from the stairs by pretending as it was an accident. Muharrem
gives a statement in the police station. Meanwhile, he realizes the news on television about
best book of the year award that Cevat took. While they are leaving the police station,
Turkan feels regret about Aslan and tells to Muharrem that she will go to the hospital to
see him.
 24

Muharrem is eating breakfast in the morning, Turkan is sitting next to him. They talk about
the marriage date between Turkan and Aslan. Muharrem implies that this marriage is being
done for the wealth that Aslan has. Turkan gets angry about the words of Muharrem which
contains humiliation about her and her future husband. Turkan stands up for Aslan and
Muharrem calls her bitch by asking her to leave his apartment. He throws the newspaper
to her face. Turkan leaves the apartment by threatening Muharrem. After she leaves,
Muharrem breaks everything in the apartment.

In the evening, the hooker finds the door open and comes into the apartment of Muharrem.
She finds Muharrem sitting alone in the ruined living room. Muharrem asks her that Why
did you come? but the hooker doesnt answer his question and Muharrem says that Its
because I tickled your pride at that night. You came back for more. Then listen to me well.
I gave you my address to get revenge. I knew youd have to call me. The hooker sits next
to Muharrem by not responding anything. She starts to touch his face with a care.
Muharrem leaves himself to her lap and starts to cry by screaming. For a second, he stops
crying and says that I want to be a good person, but they dont let me. Later on, he starts
to howl at her face again. They make love. The hooker looks at the potato while Muharrem
is washing his armpit in the toilet. The hooker silently leaves home while Muharrem is
wearing his clothes. The door of the apartment stays open and we hear the decrasing sound
of the hookers steps while she leaving the building. Muharrem stays alone in his dark and
ruined apartment.

5) CONCLUSION

If we consider the existantialist thinking as an illness, it is better to count the most

common symptoms first, so that we can easily reach to an accurate diognosis. Since I
presented 4 literary heroines who have suffered from this illness, such as The
Underground Man, Raskolnikov, Roquentin and Mersault, it will be useful to focus
on their common features and try to find them on Demirkubuz heroine, Muharrem. To
mention those common features more specifically, they are pain of existing, reasonless
boredom, having an infillable gap in the soul, consciously or subconsciously having
willingness to suffer, and loneliness which results by individual revolt.

Muharrem, as most of the modern people, is spending 2/3 of his time at work. When he
arrives home from the office, he doesnt know what to do with himself since he is spending
majority of his time for earning the money to survive. This is why Muharrem finds himself
 25

in streets every night, and walks around without knowing where he is going or what he is
wanting. Similarly to The Stranger, Demirkubuz film also starts with already alienated
heroine just like the Mersault. The reasonless boredom of Muharrem comes from his
inner rebellious feelings that are not wanting to accept to live in this way. From this point
of view, Muharrem clearly suffers from his existance because of being the part of a system
that he hates.

The motivation of Muharrems hunger to dodirty and bad things comes from his rebel
against the accepted moral comfortacy of others. This is why, he spends his salary with as
much whores as he can. In the first layer of this event, we can see that Muharrem is
fucking with some women for feding his sexual needs. But Demirkubuz film is also like
Dostoyevskys Crime and Punishment and there is always the second layer of what is
happening which is the reason that the story is written for. When we look at to that second
layer, we see that Muharrem is actually subconsciously fucking the values accepted and
followed by the crowd that is surrounding him. This is where the source of Muharrems
inner voice -With an insatiable desire for the shameful, I started to wander in dark
places.- comes from.

The gap in Muharrems soul is also because of these moral values of modern society. His
soul is not hundred percent fitting with them and that not fitting part which I call as gap in
his soul, is creating the constant dissatisfaction, boredom and the feeling of nausee similar
to the one that Roquentin has. But Muharrem doesnt afraid of being accused of shameful
acts from the society. He expresses the alive primitive part of his nature by owling against
his all colleagues in the office. He tells to the others that My primitive nature is here.
Im not going to pretend in the way you do guys as this part of my nature doesnt exist.

After Muharrem throws a potato and breaks the window of party house, his inner voice
says that A secret fight between myself and everything else started. I wasnt someone
whod pay attention to that secret fight. Muharrem is not like the crowd surrounding him
during his aimless night wanderings. He doesnt have blind acceptance against the good
and bad that are decided by others. His rebel finds another motivation in this point. And
his actual fight starts against the hypocrisy of the crowd for the sake of keeping their
comfortacy. Muharrem does not want to live no more in this way, and he stands for
 26

creating his own values. By this point, he looks like a prototype of Nietzches
Ubermensch45.

Someone can be the most good person of the world but without a personality while
another person can be the most bad person, but can have a personality under his actions.
This is one of the most important basis of existantialist thinking. The individual should
take the neccessary decisions which will define himself eventhough if there is a risk of
loosing his comfortacy or a cost to pay under these decisions and actions. Afterwards, the
individual will be created his own personality in time. And the next step will be following
the actions required by the drawn personality. This is how the existantialism suggests the
possibility of the individuals freedom. Unlike Andrei Tarkovsky, who suggests in The
Sculpting Time that Only indifference is free. What is distinctive is never free, it is
stamped with its own seal, conditioned and chained.46 the existantialist thinking sees the
freedom in being distinctive and unique.

Muharrem can not put up with the hypocrisy of the people around him. He hates people
whom are existing by hiding theirselves behind the shared ideologies of crowd. He has his
own opinions and his own standing in life and he doesnt hide them just because they
might cause him to stay alone. This is how Muharrem screams as thief Shakespeare to
Cevat. His other friends are not encouraged enough for facing with this reality. Nobody
wants to risk his established order. Because that might be the end of this friendship group
and each of them might need to look for new social area where they can meet with people
whom are thinking in the same way than them and where they can hear that they are
good people. But of course this will be a loss of comfortacy and will require an effort to
find new friendships. However, Muharrem doesnt care about that, he stands up with his
personality, and does the action that his personality requires him to do. He screams the
truth that he believes against the crowd of the restaurant in a similar way than the Antony
Montana in Scarface screams at well dressed people in a restaurant by saying that You
need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and
say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just
know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth.

45
EVA CYBULSKA: Nietzches bermensch: A Hero of Our Time. PHILOSOPHYNOW,
https://philosophynow.org/issues/93/Nietzsches_Ubermensch_A_Hero_of_Our_Time April 5, 2017
46
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann April 5, 2017
 27

Even when I lie.47 Eventhough antony Montana is a criminal gangster while Muharrem is
a modest officer who is bored from his life, they have pretty similar existantialist standing
in this sense.

Every individual should be his own sculpturist and each individuals masterpiece should be
their own identity drawn by their personality, standing and existing through the life.
Foucault describes that by saying What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has
become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That
art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But could
not everyone's life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art
object, but not our life?48 By following the footseps of The Underground Man,
Muharrem is suffering from the dilemma of Raskolnikov, nausee of Roquentin and
alienation of Mersault in different forms. At the end of all the fight that Muharrem gives
against his environment, he gets one step closer to Nietzches bermensch. At the end of
the film, Muharrem stays alone in his dark, silent and ruined apartment. That silence and
darkness of the space makes the audience feel that he is actually about to born again, like
the image of the embryonic Starchild at the end of the 2001: A Space Odyssey.

47
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Scarface_(1983_film) April 5, 2017
48
FOUCCAULT, MICHEL: The Foucault Reader. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1984
 28

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