Jin (2013)

Directed by: Reha Erdem
Country: Turkey / others

Movie Review: So far, speaking of Turkish filmmaker Reha Erdem means interesting cinema, and “Jin” is here to confirm that. It tells the journey of a 17-year-old Kurdish girl who tries to leave a delimited and well-guarded mountain region in Turkey where she hides, in order to reach the border and get to her family. In a strange, almost supernatural communion with nature and animals along the way, Jin decides to move from her permanent hideaway among the rocks and rob a house where an old woman was bedridden. She steals food, clothes, money, and a book from the woman’s granddaughter to practice her reading. But fate will make her fall into the hands of several irascible men who wanted to take advantage of her. Jin will manage to escape and show her good heart in two occasions and in two different ways: when she kills a suffering Kurdish man at his request in prison, and when she saves a wounded Turkish soldier. Having walked in circles, it was with huge sorrow that Jin returns to her origin place, the hideaway cave, just to find more devastating bombardments and a sad scenario of misery and war. Throughout the film, I got fond of Jin and her good nature, excusing every little misdemeanor she was compelled to do in order to survive. With a superb cinematography by the habitual Florent Herry, the grim story of “Jin” gives us a totally different morality depicted in an astute and articulate manner, and showing to have more to give than a mere observation of the conflict.