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REPRESENTATION OF LANDSCAPES IN THE FICTION OF

COMMEMORATION IN THE MOVIES: THE BATTLES OF

ÇANAKKALE IN TURKEY CINEMA

Başak ÖZER*, Ebru ERBAŞ GÜRLER**

*PhD Candidate, ITU Landscape Architecture Department

** Asst. Prof.Dr., ITU Landscape Architecture Department

This year is centenary of the battles of Çanakkale, one of the most important

battles in the history of the world. This war which we remembered and commemorated in the various layers, ways and cultures in the last century, has been reproduced, reminded and remembered in the social memory through movies.

These reminding in the movies were made by legendaries, discourses, music etc. and also landscape images. These images were created from the written history’s marks, transmission of oral history or first time in the fiction of movies. All these commemoration images re-found places in the social memory by related with landscape or not.

During the last century, many national and international animations, documentaries and movies about Çanakkale War were made. Some of the Turkey productions are Çanakkale 1915 (2012), Çanakkale Çocukları (2012), Sarı Siyah (2013), and Çanakkale: Yolun Sonu (2014) (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Posters of Çanakkale 1915 (Url 1), Çanakkale Çocukları (Url 2), Sarı

Siyah (Url 3), Çanakkale Yolun Sonu (Url 4) The aims of this study are looking at memorial culture and the construction

of narrative in Turkey through Çanakkale movies of Turkey Cinema; analyzing the role of landscape in the created fiction; and looking at the relationship between the landscapes’ current character. Thus, linkage and differences between landscape fiction of commemoration places in the movies and memoryscape in the existing landscape was explored. In this scope, only Turkey production movies about Çanakkale War were examined. This examination had a look at the relationship between event/memory, commemoration (type) and fiction of landscape.

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Çanakkale 1915 (2012)

Yeşim Sezgin’s Çanakkale 1915 is an epical, historical movie, which was adapted from Turgut Özakman’s work Diriliş Çanakkale 1915. The movie states place names while narrating Battle of Çanakkale chronologically.

Places, actions and discourses are generally built upon images that have left a mark in collective memory and that are determinant in travel narratives. Besides the war architecture in Gallipoli, the most important images are monuments, sculptures and historical photographs (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Examples of places and actions from Çanakkale 1915 (left) and

Gallipoli and photographs (right) (Authors’ archive, Url 5)

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Mostly Çimenlik Castle, Kilitbahir Mecidiye Bastion and Arıburnu Front and landscapes in the movie depicting the times at the trenches can be classified as war architectures (castle, bastions), fronts and trenches.

In battlefields that are generally presented asdun, barren lands, the headquarters are established under a tree and clean clothes to be worn before leaving for death are placed over bushes (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Landscape colors from Çanakkale 1915

Table 1 Landscape, incident, supportive components in fiction, supportive

discourse in fiction and memory/commemoration from Çanakkale 1915

Çanakkale 1915 Time 00:11.21 00:11.21 00:31.03 00:37.13 00:41.30 00:47.48 00:49.45 01:16.27 01:18.23 01:33.39 01:37.07

Landscape Rural landscape Garden

Kilitbahir Mecidiye Redoubt

Süleymaniye Cami Headquarters Arıburnu Trench

Battle Front

Battle Front

Between trenches Arıburnu

Incident

Leave-taking, Send-off soldier

Taking photo with son

Carrying three bullets in the back of Seyit Corporal

It's written on mihrab "Canakkale impassable"

Taking, writing and reading letter

Praying troop one day before military landing

Mehmet who miss his darling smell of hankey

Mustafa Kemal ordered die not to attack

Mustafa Kemal examining the battlefield with his binoculars

Taking an injured Anzac soldier to his trench with a Turkish soldier

Turkish soldiers collecting the martyrdom and their neckbands

Supportive Components in Fiction

Mother, Darling, Hankey

Son, Wife, Small Tree Redoubt Azan Letter Pray, Night

Night, Gun

Binoculars, Tree

Binoculars, Sun

Trench, Rifle, White Flag, Injured Soldier, Anzac

Martye, Neckband, stretcher, Salutation

Supportive Discourse in Fiction

Pray, State

Missing, Looking

Allahu ekber - -

God, Family, Son, State, Enemy, Army, Soldier Thriving, Martyrdom - - - - Folk Song

Memory / Commemoration

The place where people see their relatives last time

Revitalization of imaged memory

Success against the Allied Power

Writting "Canakkale impassable" on sky; Relious item for war againist Muslims

The function of headquarters through common memory: Becoming a place of family received news

The function of night through common memory: Strenghtening faiths before landing

Efforts to eliminate darling longing

Revitalization of imaged memory

Revitalization of imaged memory

Revitalization of imaged memory

Revitalization of imaged memory

Çanakkale Çocukları In the movie Çanakkale Çocukları the story sets the main characters, colors

and elements of landscape. All of the children who are sent to war ignoring national, religious and racial

differences are animated with their immaculate, snow white mothers. Warmongers wish to tear these souls away from life, from their basic goal. On the other hand the children who die at war are no longer the sons of their mothers, they belong to the mother earth (Figure 4).

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Figure 4 Mother and her sons in the garden

Being like two peas in a pod, sons and brother countries shoot and kill each

other unwillingly in Çanakkale Çocukları (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Sons and brother countries shoot and kill each other

God wants to give a second chance to humans who are about the die and to

barren nature created by humans with rain drops coming from a cloud during full moon. However, they disregard this chance despite everything (Figure 6).

Figure 6 God gives a second chance but sons and brother countries kill each

other again While the color of nature exists in the green apple and the grass at the

garden in front of the house, blood-red as the opposite of green spreads everywhere, it changes the color of land (Figure 7).

Figure 7 The color of land in the battle field

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Table 2 Landscape, incident, supportive components in fiction, supportive discourse in fiction and memory/commemoration from Çanakkale Çocukları

Çanakkale Çocukları

Time 00:01.06 00:09.38 00:23.42 00:46.01 00:47.34

Landscape Garden Battlefield Battlefield Rural Landscape Battlefield

Incident

Having breakfast and conversation

Killing of Osman and James each other

Two injured brother looking up each other

Kathy saw a fool moon

Two brothers eating one green apple

Supportive Components in Fiction

Apple, Brother, Father, Mother, Blood Flag, Pray

Tree, Ground, Photo

Mother, fool moon, cloud

Tree, Green Apple

Supportive Discourse in Fiction -

Ground, Red, Son - God, Tears -

Memory / Commemoration

Disruption and emphasizing brotherhood

Disruption of brotherhood

Emphasizing brotherhood

Using of moon for memorizing sons

Emphasizing brotherhood and life

Sarı Siyah (2012) Produced in 2012, the movie is directed by Levent Akçay and came out in

2013. The role of landscape in the movie is generally reflected on sticking specific

events or moments temporally in the memory by envisaging the sky and moon. Night, day, clouds and phases of moon are used in order to strengthen the effect of important events both in lap dissolves and within screens (Figure 8).

Figure 8 Night, clouds and moon

Outdoors like countryside and doorstep take place at the set up of moments

like death, martyrization, saying farewell, and sendoff.

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Table 3 Landscape, incident, supportive components in fiction, supportive discourse in fiction and memory/commemoration from Sarı Siyah

Sarı Siyah

Time

00:05.48; 00:37.33

00:15.24; 00:30.35

00:17.07; 00:17.59

00:30.10 02:36.53 01:19.51-01:24.24

Landscape Battlefield

Frontyard of Country/Village House Grave

Rural Landscape Trench

Frontyard of Istanbul Sultana School

Incident

The injured soldier on a stretcher were taken to a tent and his bleeding hand touches the ground; Turkish soldier who is praying azan to be killed by a bullet

Mourning wife (Nigar) after her husbands death (Nedim); Sending off Mehmet to Istanbul

Embeding of Martye Mehmet; Hasan praying for Nedim next to his grave

Leave-taking

19 Mayıs 1915 night attack

Headmaster declaring the death knell and the rest of students painting the school in yellow and black; Explaning the why the school colours are yellow and black

Supportive Components in Fiction

Ground / Soil, Blood, Azan

Turkish Flag, Crying, Sky, Night, Crescent, Fullmoon, Door, Mother

Ground / Soil, Pray, Crying, Child, Gravestone

Tree, Hankey

Night, Fullmoon Crying, Martyr

Supportive Discourse in Fiction - - Ground

Longing, Heartbreak -

Faith, Martye, Motherland, Nation, Life, Ground, Defence, Mother, Son, Sibling, Father, Brother, Liberty

Memory / Commemoration

Representation of the image discourse of "Washed ground by the blood of the martyrs"; stopping the religious ritual with death by the enemies

Implied representation of pain; The place where people see their relatives last time

Making feel of under ground in grave

The place where people see their relatives last time

Using of phases of moon for memorizing effect in landscape

The act of painting itself is held in commemoration of the school, this memorial type also creates the name of the movie: Reinforcing commemoration in memory over the narrative

Çanakkale Yolun Sonu (2013) Directed by Serdar Akman, Kemal Uzun and Ahmet Karaman, and produced

in 2013, the 120-minute movie came out in 2014. Gelibolu is used very effectively in the movie as landscape. The directors use

landscape as one of the most essential tools to narrate the time of incidents and the effect of the incidents. The director present landscape in bird’s eye view before and after the incident, and through comparison have the influence of the events over the landscape stick in the memory of the audience. By doing so, the audience sees two types of landscape; one before and one after the incident (Figure 9).

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Figure 9 Examples from bird’s eye view landscapes presented after incidents Green and nature is used in before-the-incident scenes, and dun land, azan,

letter and tombstone is used in after-the-incident scenes as elements supporting the setup. Thus the contrast between life and death is emphasized (Figure 10).

Figure 10 Difference between the landscapes shown before and after the

incident Trenches opened in topography, tracks and the life inside them are

transferred to the audience via very clear and influential landscape image. The burial of the trenches and the new topography created after increase the sensation and corroborate the influence with the usage of homogeneous material and color of land (Figure 11).

Figure 11 Watching the life inside the trenches from above

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The movie clearly explains how the Turkish troops use the advantage of reading correctly the landscape in the fronts and how it becomes a war strategy. In the scenes which depict the landing of the forces on the shore easily, both the first steps of the enemy troops and the geographical difficulties they face are shown while the advantages of being on the hill are presented from the eyes of the Turkish troops. By this way the audience comprehends the landscape and also sees how it turns into a war strategy (Figure 12).

Figure 12 Examples from the scenes which show the relation between the

war strategy and geography

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Table 4 Landscape, incident, supportive components in fiction, supportive discourse in fiction and memory/commemoration from Çanakkale: Yolun Sonu

Çanakkale: Yolun Sonu

Time 00:09.25- 00:11.12 00:15.29

00:34.35-00:34.46 01:26.13

00:02.29-00:05.52; 00:07.10; 00:17.29; 00:22.49; 00:50.29

Landscape Village Square

Front yard of Country/Village House Trench Battlefield

Gallipoli Landscape

Incident

Giving letters to the owners by messenger; Reading who reached the martyrdom by messengers

Leave-taking, Send-off soldier

Burying the martyes who died in night attack

The scene of performing a prayer of imam before the night attack to arsenal

Explaning war geography and tactics before and after landing and attack

Supportive Components in Fiction Mother, Wife

Son, Wife, Mother, Door Imam, Pray Azan

Dun-colored ground, Azan, Letter, Gravestone

Supportive Discourse in Fiction Shahada, Martye

Death, Cruelty, Martye, Wife, Sibling, Enemy, Homor, Home, Life - -

Crusader army, Faith, Belief, Patriotism, Fiduciary, Buckler, Motherland, ground, God

Memory / Commemoration

Function of village square through common memory: it becomes the place where the death and life news taken

The place where people see their relatives last time

Allowing memorizing people who lost their lives in the trenches. Commemoration left to the audience

The last act between life and death

Showing current situation of the place before incident, strengthening seriousness of the situation in spectator memory after the incident, increasing memorizing effect by comparison before and after incident

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Common Aspects of Selected Films in Terms of Using Landscape Common aspects of the usage of landscape in the movies mentioned in this

study are as below; Usage of outdoors in farewell / sendoff scenes It is observed that doorsteps, villages, village squares or countryside are

common outdoor spaces used in generally farewell and soldier sendoff scenes in the selected movies (Figure 13 and 14).

Figure 13 Some examples of outdoor usage in farewell and sendoff scenes

from Çanakkale 1915, Sarı Siyah

Figure 14 Some examples of outdoor usage in farewell and sendoff scenes

from Çanakkale Yolun Sonu Supporting elements of the set up There are supporting elements for outdoor scene set up in the movies used

in this study. They can be classified as familial, religious, nation state, natural and commemorative supporting elements and they support the influence of the incident presented in the specific landscape over the memory.

Familial elements: the figures of mother, father, child, son, sibling, and spouse are associated with landscape characters (Figure 15, 16 and 17).

Figure 15 Some examples depicting the usage of family figures as supporting

elements in Çanakkale Çocukları

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Figure 16 Some examples depicting the usage of family figures as supporting

elements in Sarı Siyah

Figure 17 Some examples depicting the usage of family figures as supporting

elements in Çanakkale Yolun Sonu Religious elements: The usage of supporting elements like tomb, tombstone,

azan, praying, imam, and nun triggers a spiritual commemoration mechanism by strengthening the link between landscape and incident (Figure 18, 19, 20 and 21).

Figure 18 Some examples depicting the usage of religious elements like

praying and mosque figures in Çanakkale 1915

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Figure 19 Some examples depicting the usage of religious elements like

cross and nun figures in Çanakkale Çocukları

Figure 20 Some examples depicting the usage of religious elemen

ts like azan, tombstone and prayer figures in Sarı Siyah

Figure 21 Some examples depicting the usage of religious elements like

praying, cross, prayer and imam figures in Çanakkale Yolun Sonu Elements Representing Nation State: The elements like blood, flag and

crescent incite national feelings at the time of incident and are used as supporting elements for the nation state image in the landscapes presented as homeland (Figure 22, 23 and 24).

Figure 22 The usage of an element representing nation state (flag) in

Çanakkale 1915

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Figure 23 The usage of the elements representing nation state (flag and

blood) in Çanakkale Çocukları

Figure 24 The usage of the elements like flag and blood in Sarı Siyah

Natural Elements: Although the values represented by natural elements like

land, tree, green apple, full moon, sky, cloud, rain, wind, snow and flower differ in each movie, their integrated usage with landscape increases the influence of these elements on incident memory at a serious rate (Figure 25,26 and 27).

Figure 25 Some examples depicting the usage of natural elements in

Çanakkale 1915

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Figure 26 Some examples depicting the usage of natural elements in

Çanakkale Çocukları

Figure 27 Some examples depicting the usage of natural elements in

Sarı Siyah Commemorative supporting elements: We see the elements like

handkerchief, photograph, identification tag, letter, folk song, and personal effects box as image objects supporting commemorative set up (Figure 28, 29 and 30).

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Figure 28 Some examples depicting the usage of commemorative supporting elements in Çanakkale 1915

Figure 29 Example of the usage of photograph as a commemorative

supporting element in Çanakkale Çocukları

Figure 30 Example of the usage of handkerchief and letter as

commemorative supporting elements in Sarı Siyah and Çanakkale Yolun Sonu Supporting discourses accompanying set up It is observed that landscape set up is supported by the accompanying

discourses in the selected movies. Commemorating and narrating set ups are envisaged by the usage of landscape and discourses together. Harangues, inner and background voices or letters read through off-voice increase the impact, and in this respect the emphasis in the supporting discourses accompanying set up is done through the concepts of land, homeland, blood, faith, belief, martyr, shahada, life, death, cruelty, sibling, enemy, trust, mother, child, ancestors, son,

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father, elder brother, independence, Right, crusader army, soldier, house, chastity, honor.

It is also observed that some scenes are built over ‘image discourse’ and that the elements like blood, bloody hand, and land are used integrated with landscape to support the set up. Image discourses like “Washing the land with blood”, “a land can be called homeland only when that land is washed with blood”, “they went to wash Çanakkale with blood”, and “it would be a sin to give them one inch of this land” can be given as examples for this set up type.

Conclusion Gallipoli War has a very important place in memory of the nation state. The

movie about the war is one way to represent a significant strengthening of social memory.

The relationship of the landscape with incident and memory/commemoration in movies was investigated through Çanakkale 1915, Çanakkale Çocukları, Sarı Siyah and Çanakkale Yolun Sonu. In this context, the role, importance and instrumentalisation methods of landscape in the fiction, are defined as follows:

Çanakkale 1915: Memory is repeated verbatim by imitated of the landscape in the scenes of imagine memory. In this situated, the role given to landscape can be just the background.

Çanakkale Çocukları: Giving sense of landscape in the producing of new and strong image, is done not a whole, through singular elements (apples, bulut, trees, flowers vb). Gelibolu is identified with only trenches and mass grave pits, strong character and geography of the Gallipoli Landscape is not transferred to the audience.

Sarı Siyah: Temporal characteristics and values of the landscape have placed in the story as a single element.

Çanakkale Yolun Sonu: The striking effect of the war to the landscape and geograph are shown before and after of the incidents. These shows are presented with holistic landscape perception, not on individual elements of landscape.

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19.05.2015. Url 3> http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dosya:Sari_Siyah_Afi%C5%9F.jpg, date:

19.05.2015. Url 4> http://1080phdizle.blogspot.com.tr/2013/03/canakkale-yolun-

sonu.html, date: 19.05.2015 Url 5> https://geolocation.ws/v/P/34922006/seyit-onba-ant/en, date:

21.05.2015.