What it’s about
After the unconscious body of his 17-year-old daughter Meryem (Namal) is brought home, Tahsin (Emin Gursoy) and his wife come to believe that she has been raped. Tahsin's cousin Ali (Mustafa Avrikan), a local bigwig, declares that the disgraced girl, who refuses to discuss the incident, should be killed according to ancient custom, and orders his son Cemel (Han) to carry out the task.
Why we love it
A brutally violated young woman from a small Anatolian village finds herself ostracized and then hunted by a community tethered to ultra-traditional notions of chastity in Abdullah Oguz's tense melodrama. The plot hinges on the dynamic between Meryem and her would-be killer, who can't muster the resolve to execute the girl. Eventually, they find a refuge of sorts with an elder yachtsman who hires them as deckhands. “Bliss” is a gorgeously shot film about dignity, sexual victimization, and gender bias in a country still coping with the conflict between modernity and archaic custom.