Of Fathers, Sons and ‘Solitary, Misshapen’ Trees: Ahlat Ağacı/The Wild Pear Tree (2018) 1

Abstract

Ceylan’s strikingly male-centred films focus on alienated, emotionally impoverished, discontented male characters, including young boys and adolescents in conflict with antagonising paternal and maternal figures. A key theme running through Ceylan’s oeuvre that finds its culmination in The Wild Pear Tree is the father-son relationship, which carries socio-political implications, leading to the interpretation of his films as allegorical takes on Turkish national identity and the political situation in Turkey. Using a psychoanalytic framework, this chapter presents a close reading of The Wild Pear Tree, as an oedipal drama about a son who struggles to surmount the dilemma posed by a humiliated father that fails to embody the paternal function. Freudian and Lacanian insights are brought to analyse the protagonist’s relationship with his father, as well as his relationship with his mother, who makes up the third pole of the oedipal triangle. Highlighting the interplay between love and hate that colours their relationship, the chapter traces the protagonist’s oedipal journey which culminates in his identification with his father who transforms from an object of contempt into an emulative ideal, and an aspiring writer who desires a life unlike his father’s narrow, provincial life finds himself following in his footsteps, becoming heir to a legacy of disillusionment and thwarted hopes.