8 FILMS THAT INSPIRED AYSEGUL ON TUESDAYS
Ayşegül on Tuesdays was initially born out of a short story I wrote one frosty January morning in New York. For some reason or the other, the morning reminded me of my Turkish immigrant mother, a mother who for the entirety of my childhood remained a housewife trapped within herself in an Ohio suburb, many miles from the place she called home. In Ayşegül on Tuesdays, I put myself into my mother's shoes, but instead of being a mother, she spends her days utterly alone, in an empty house, waiting for her husband to return home from work. She has no social network and nowhere to go. Her raison d’être are her weekly phone calls with a mysterious man named Ali. All we know about Ali is that Ayşegül takes comfort in speaking to him in her native tongue.
Ayşegül has a timeless quality, vintage in feel, we don't quite know what year it is. I didn't want to place her in the modern, smart-phone world as it would have influenced her feelings. Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s in America, we lived an existence disconnected from the rest of the world. Long distance calls to Turkey were infrequent and the internet was still in its budding phases of AIM and chat services. The lack of technology lends itself to Ayşegül's isolation - she is utterly alone in her world, left to fantasize about her former life, only to begin to blur the lines between fiction and reality, leading us to wonder if her conversations with Ali are merely a figment of her imagination.
As I adapted the film from short story to screenplay and then envisioned its life on the screen, several films served as the inspiration for building Ayşegül's world. The essence of filmmakers like Chantal Ackerman and Agnès Varda are infused into Ayşegül's world, particularly my framing and colour grading choices. Because Ayşegül's story is one of a single protagonist, it was crucial to be able to capture her interiority through her daily actions. The thread that weaves my film references together is their ability to express the emotions of these women without saying very much at all.
1. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles, Chantal Ackerman, 1975
When the seeming simplicity of daily life reveals itself to be the most evocative narrative.
2. Le Mépris, Jean-Luc Godard, 1963
Often words are meaningless, unable to encapsulate one’s true feelings. The emotions that flow from body language reveal the truth.
3. Le Bonheur - Agnès Varda, 1965
Varda described this film as, “a summer peach with its perfect colours, and inside there is a worm.” A powerful use of colour palettes to show both the uniformity and disarray of a family. The slight green undertones in the colouring hints at the rotten core within.
4. Cléo from 5 to 7, Agnès Varda, 1962
A struggle of a woman to reconcile her exterior beauty and interior turmoil.
5. Three Colours: Red, Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1994
Kieślowski’s films have a dreamlike quality to them, playing with time, place, and nonlinear narratives. Some things don’t need to be explained; their charm lies in their mystery.
6. Charulata, Satyajit Ray, 1964
A tender capture of female loneliness with very little dialogue, as Charulata’s entire world is viewed from within (specifically through a set of binoculars).
7. In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai, 2000
A masterY at using spaces as a character and keeper of secrets.
8. The Human Voice, Pedro Almodovar, 2020
