In Mustang, set in a Turkish village not far from Istanbul, five young sisters grow up as they face a sickening practice as old as time: child marriage. Raised by their grandma and uncle, as their parents have passed, each of their childhoods is quickly stripped away. This film shows a mix of girlhood and beauty with oppression and the mistreatment of girls due to different traditions and purity culture. In the film, they are plucked one by one out of their home, like the apples they used to pick and eat in one of the opening scenes. The girls must learn at far too young an age that they are objects with no voice waiting for marriage, unless someone dares break the cycle. 

With their freedoms slowly disappearing, however, seemingly all at once, they are banned from leaving the house and are pulled out of school to prevent temptation. In addition, there are fences installed around the house, making it a real prison.   

Their grandmother, who one would assume may help them, knows about these issues but doesn’t stop them from being implemented. However, she intervenes to help around their uncle and other visitors because she knows what they’re going through. While she is the cause of so much of their pain, she can not be fully to blame as she did not establish the system and knows their fates all too well. She is unable and unwilling to go against their culture to help them.  

With their house on lockdown, forcing them to live as severely depressed prisoners, what comes to my mind is The Virgin Suicides in relation to their sisterhood and treatment by those around them. One scene of the sisters lying around in silence on each other in the sunlight is identical to one in The Virgin Suicides. Both films also have the same number of sisters. Even the name, The Virgin Suicides, suggests the same fates as the girls in Mustang, as their ability to be married revolves around their virginity, and as we see later in the film, suicide being a means of escape. Both films depict very similar people and lives but with different outcomes because of where they were born.

Selma is the first promised through a marriage arrangement. Sonay is next, though at least this time willingly to the man she loves and knows. The luck of finding someone Sonay loves is rare, and the fact she was able to marry him was even rarer, but only at the expense of her sister Selma, who was put up for auction instead. The difference in demeanor at their weddings is astonishingly stark; while one dances and sings with her love, the other chugs the dregs of the men’s leftover alcohol. This scene and the wedding in total end up being the last time the girls are all together. It is so beautiful to see but also bittersweet and heartbreaking.

Another aspect of purity culture is the ignorance of sex and of their own bodies’ cycles. If a girl is married and doesn’t bleed when she first has sex with her husband, she is automatically impure. She is expected to show the bloody sheet to the boy’s parents like a trophy of her loss of innocence and her new ownership. But it doesn’t matter if she is or isn’t, because not showing blood makes her a whore. This plays out for Selma on her wedding night.  

Lale, the youngest, seeing her sisters get picked off one by one with no means of escape, can’t understand why her sisters won’t try harder to leave. She is unable to comprehend the systems they are up against. Regardless, she knows the only way to end the cycle is to take matters into her own hands if she wants any chance of freedom. So she decides to learn how to drive. Yasin, a local man who drives by their house on deliveries, is the only person who seems to show the girls any kindness.  He ends up helping teach Lale how to drive.

But not all the sisters have the courage to attempt escape. Ece, the middle child, now set to be married, starts off by obeying the orders and expectations, but soon seems not to care about anything at all as her behavior becomes more dangerous. Ultimately awful, but unsurprisingly, she kills herself with their uncle’s gun before having to be married, as that was the better outcome in her mind. Ece’s last scene is her laughing with her sisters while a TV broadcast goes on about women having to be pure as they are all now “too provocative.” She is told to leave the table, and when she does, hope for her is lost. 

Reunited for the funeral, the last two girls living at home, Lele and Nur, see their sisters again, but each knows it will likely never truly happen again. Once five, only four remain, but only two are left with all their freedoms, however loosely defined. 

With nothing else to lose and Nur’s own wedding scheduled for right after her very first period, the two plan their escape to Istanbul where they hope to meet their old school teacher. The night of the wedding, the escape plan begins. The girls lock themselves in the house and cleverly lock the men outside, as they cannot break past the prison bars they themselves installed. Then they must sneak back out over the walls in the garden, waiting in the bushes by the main road for a sign that hopefully Yasin will come by to help them and take them away — which he does. Acting like an older brother to Lale, he is the only man to ever show her kindness. This leads to their freedom. 

In reality, this would not be the outcome, as many aspects of this film don’t fully depict this side of conservative Turkish culture accurately. Regardless of the small details, though, the message remains the same. 

The film is titled Mustang because, as Yasin picks the girls up in his old and battered Mustang, the car itself becomes the reason and a symbol for why the girls are able to gain their freedom. 

As I sit now writing this entry after rewatching this film, I can only think about how the many heartbreaking aspects of it are unfortunately the realities for thousands of girls today. To me, this, and many other reasons, are why I love Mustang, because it brings much needed awareness to an issue that is often forgotten and needs to be spoken of more in order to find a solution and ultimately help those who are struggling.