The Spectacle of Politics and Religion in the Contemporary Turkish Cinema by Ebru Thwaites Diken

Author:Ebru Thwaites Diken
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783319717005
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The Daughter as Sculptor: Religion and Art

Let us now revisit the theoretical problematique of the film: whether theology and philosophy establish the same kind of truth. Selman’s intellectual trajectory follows a circular route. His starting point is belief , which his identity as a cleric forces upon him. He is a representative of institutionalized religion, yet a supporter of pure belief . Next he tries to establish the relationship between theology and philosophy . Unsatisfied by the possible answers, he resorts to pure belief . However, he is left with the problem that theology and philosophy cannot agree or contradict each other, because they have different conceptions of truth—one revealed , the other constructed. At this point, he returns to theology.

Apart from the relationship between belief and reason , the film invites us to think about another relationship, between belief and art. Zeynep’s role is significant in this regard. We learn that Selman’s wife died in a fatal car crash and he raised his daughter alone. Zeynep studies Fine Art and shares a house with her boyfriend, Gökhan. This unusual domestic arrangement for a cleric’s daughter is not only a consequence of Selman’s liberal attitude. The fact that Zeynep is a sculptor serves as a metaphor for art replacing religion in modern society.

Smith (1998, 15) claims that today’s ‘fine art heroes replace the martyrs of a church militant’. That is to say, art has taken the place of religion (see Chap. 2). The doctrine of creation in monotheistic religions suggests that humans are made of clay. Clay represents the mundane, the corporal. According to all religious teachings, one reaches spiritual perfection by disciplining the body. In this regard, it is no coincidence that Zeynep, Selman’s heir, is a sculptor. She makes human models from clay, and, as a female artist, reverses the narrative of monotheistic religions by creating a woman—an Eve instead of an Adam.

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