Sayara (Grimmfest 2024)

Fan favourite director Can Evrenol, whose 2015 film Baskin was well-received in horror circles, had a new film playing this past weekend at Grimmfest, and although it’s not a horror per se, there are certainly grim, dark, and horrific parts to it.

Sayara is a quiet young woman from Turkmenistan who works as a gym cleaner is Istanbul, but she seems to live between two worlds. Her job makes her slightly invisible to people, but her history makes her a source of interest for the others working at the gym. The notion of people living double or contrasting lives is a consistent through line in the film and plays out in several ways, one of which is Sayara’s unusual dichotomy. Her father taught her everything she knows about martial arts (and throughout the film we see that she is indeed a formidable fighter), but her shy nature is clearly at odds with her combat ability. Another example is Baris – the owner of the gym who’s been having an illicit affair with Sayara’s older sister Yonca – and his gym instructors, all of whom have been using the business as their own personal playground until one day, Yonca catches Baris being unfaithful.

People will go to any lengths to protect their self-image, and in this case that leads to a brutal attack, murder, intimidation, and agony for Sayara. Now she must make a choice – avenge her family, or distance herself from the crime and give in to the gang that are covering Baris’s tracks thanks to his father’s connections? No-one will ever be the same again after these events, and the idea of contrasting lives plays out once more as one side has the ability to control authority, while the other can only rail against it.

Duygu Kocabiyik (Biricik Sevgilim and Meksika Açmazi), plays Sayara with a range of vulnerability, but that’s partly based on her shy nature, and partly due to her profound strength and determination, the combination of which leaves you wondering when she’ll burst out from the shadow of her circumstances. It’s a powerful performance that highlights her masterful ability to play with restraint, and builds to a release of anger and relentlessness that’s unleashed when Sayara understands what she needs to do to move forward towards “healing”, and away from her pain. Özgül Kosar (Babaannem), plays Yonca with a seemingly care-free nature that’s been hardened by a different route in life, and she strikes the balance between freedom and heaviness beautifully. Kosar’s ability to earnestly show rebelliousness, the weight of trauma that’s been induced by her surroundings, and the fear she feels when Yonca is in clear danger with little way out, is what gives the pivotal point of the film such momentum. Both Sayara and Yonca are treated as multi-faceted characters not only through Kocabiyik and Kosar’s performances and acting choices, but also through Can Evrenol’s script and the decision to make them both fighters in different ways. Yonca fights for her life until the very end while Sayara doesn’t back down even against horrific odds, and for me Kocabiyik and Kosar are two phenomenal actors who are brilliantly cast, and they’re easily the standout talents of the film.

Rooted in the setting of the gym and everything that transpires around it, Sayara explores the gap between the physical release of exertion (whether its exercise or combat), and the emotional release of grief and anger. These two aspects appear to be opposites, but are they really, and do they always have to be? If physical and emotional release can complement and help each other, then how do you reconcile the two? Revenge is a powerful motivation in any story, and Sayara’s quest for it becomes as like a sparring session as she wades through genuine fear and danger, whilst also trying to overcome her own internal struggle. This gives our female lead a “meaty” portrayal, adding layers to her character and making her someone you’d root for as soon as you meet her.

Woven into every scene are questions about who we are, how we present ourselves to other people and the world, and if we’re all just struggling to keep the threads of our lives straight under the masks we put on daily. Would it be possible for Baris to go back to being a loving married man, or for Sayara to return to a “normal” existence after his infidelity and the ensuing brutality and murder? It’s these sorts of questions that are surprisingly backed up by Can Evrenol’s choice to make Sayara a cleaner with clear ability in martial arts.

Service workers are often treated as invisible, and they can move through the world, as Sayara does at times, completely undetected. This can be a considered a strong, worthwhile trait for the path of revenge she has to walk, but it becomes a weakness when she must step into the light and become a witness as the invisibility that society imposes on her because of her job complicates matters. You can become the ghost or the ghost can become part of you, but you have to fight so that it doesn’t swallow you whole, and there has to be some way for both to become visible – if only for a little while.

Martial arts remains a mainstay of the film and serves as a source of pain and conflict for Sayara as, after promising her father not to share what she’d learned, she’s asked by Baris to teach women self-defense classes as the demand has become so high, and this reveals the rather sad wider message. I’m reminded of the societal consequences of womanhood and the need of women to take on physical training and self-defense as a matter of survival. Sadly, women must learn to defend themselves, and in that respect Sayara is ahead of the game – but she still has to wrestle with the consequences of being a woman, defending herself, and avenging her sister. She must bear witness to her sister’s body and, despite being the shyer sibling, make the harrowing choice to rise to the occasion, and in this introspective, beautifully shot and dynamic film, she does so tenfold. 

Sampira’s Archive – Sayara (2024)