Şimdiki Zaman: Analyzing Women Characters' Representation in Spaces Within the Scope of Feminist Film Criticism

Abstract

This study analyzes spaces within the scope of feminist film theories and examines how Belmin Söylemez, the director of Şimdiki Zaman, represents the main female characters to her audience. Şimdiki Zaman is considered to be provocative in the discourse of classical narrative cinema. Here, its status is analyzed by questioning the representation of female characters’ contradictory presence in public and private space in view of male-dominant modes of thinking. The qualities of narrative space that Mieke Bal described in Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (1985) form the basis for this analysis. Feminist film examines the construction of male-dominant understanding by the use of codes of cinema. Space fact, a fact of narratology, allows one to argue the possibilities of making feminist counter cinema by showing how women represent a contradiction in public space/private space. Claire Johnston’s article “Feminist Cinema as Counter Cinema” (1973) provides the foundation for a feminist counter cinema.