“With Djinn Wedding, Karahan continues to build upon his talent, expanding both the scope of his narrative and his visual canvas to create a powerful and immersive film.”
World premiering in this year’s Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform competition is Turkish director Ferit Karahan’s Djinn Wedding. Set in Eastern Anatolia, the film tells the story of a Turkish family across four different time periods and across several decades as they struggle against societal expectations and family bonds. Karahan’s previous films, The Fall from Heaven in 2013 and Brother’s Keeper in 2021, showcased his increasing skill as a filmmaker. With Djinn Wedding, Karahan continues to build upon his talent, expanding both the scope of his narrative and his visual canvas to create a powerful and immersive film.
Karahan divides the film into four segments, beginning with a short prologue that introduces the family as they move into a house in Eastern Anatolia. The mother seems reluctant to live in the home, while the father, wearing military garb, is slightly more enthusiastic. The house sits in a beautiful location near a mountain and provides the family with land they can harvest and live on. There are three children at this moment, the oldest son Deniz, the daughter Ceren, and the younger son Halit, while a fourth child will eventually be born. Even in these early moments, there is a sense that the house and the land carry an unpleasant history.
The prologue then moves into the first main section of the film, with the children now older and the fourth child, Yasin, having been born. Yasin has a mental disability, while the mother is in the throes of a troubling and heavy depression. A neighbor says that the family has bad luck, implying that it comes from living in a home belonging to people who were forced out of it. This is a reference to the Armenian genocide and the displacement of Armenians from their homes. The mother’s depression eventually leads to suicide, in an especially eerie sequence that occurs only moments after the local imam teaches the children that suicide is the worst sin, explaining that those who take their own lives will be forced to repeat the act for eternity.
The second segment takes place about ten to fifteen years later, as Deniz returns home from college to attend his sister’s wedding. He is studying genetics and appears deeply depressed, much like his mother was years earlier. Once Deniz arrives for the wedding, Karahan establishes the family dynamic and introduces characters adjacent to Ceren’s husband-to-be. While Deniz has been away at school, Halit has taken on more responsibility for the house and the property. Ceren has no other choice but to get married and there are scenes about the discussion of dowry and focused on traditional marriage. After the marriage ceremony, Ceren is forced to undergo an ultrasound and it is revealed that she is already pregnant with another man’s child.
The third segment jumps forward many years, with Halit now managing the house and property while his father suffers from Alzheimer’s and is frequently chained up to prevent him from sundowning. Halit also takes care of his sister’s daughter, who is just as promiscuous as her mother, while continuing to care for his younger brother Yasin, whose condition has never improved nor does it seem anyone has attempted to help him.
The film is lengthy, but it is also deeply immersive. Karahan tells an emotional and epic story that is highly engaging and his assured filmmaking helps keep the film controlled rather than becoming sloppy or boring. Working with cinematographer Serdar Özdemir, Karahan frequently uses long tracking shots that keep the film moving. The cinematography also emphasizes the expansive landscape of Eastern Anatolia, with its rugged mountains and harsh terrain which seem to wear down the characters.
The wedding sequence is particularly impressive in its scale. Karahan fills the scene with a large cast, many of whom have little or no direct role in the narrative. Their presence nevertheless makes the wedding feel completely real, as opposed to relying on a computer generated set of extras or AI. It’s much appreciated to see a director able to manage a large cast of extras, and it shows Karahan’s raw talent.
The film is also thematically rich. Karahan clearly critiques social norms in Turkey and how wedding customs and expectations appear to be outdated and backward. At the same time, he delves deeply into the idea of the “djinn wedding” and the supernatural beliefs surrounding the home. Djinns are said to visit the home and attempt to possess those who live inside it, while characters witness meteors falling from the sky and pass around amulets that may or may not be possessed. Karahan seems to use these supernatural elements as a way of drawing parallels between conservative traditions and spiritual or supernatural beliefs, but the film is ultimately more interested in the ways that behavior, trauma, and genetics can be passed down over generations.
Deniz’s study of genetics is therefore particularly important. It is no coincidence that both the mother and Deniz suffer from depression, just as there is a connection between Ceren and her daughter regarding their sexuality. Do these similarities exist because of the culture and the environment, or because of genetics, or a mix of both? Karahan isn’t heavy-handed, he lets everything play out without answers, and that allows the film to succeed.
The same ideas extend to other family connections. The father develops Alzheimer’s in his later years, while Yasin, the youngest child born after the family moved into the house, has a mental disability. Karahan leaves open the possibility that all the conditions in the family are connected, both through a genetic explanation and also through the family’s environment and generational trauma. There is one instance with Yasin, however, where the implication becomes borderline problematic, possibly connecting disabilities with maladies or even worse, supernatural possession. A similar implication could extend to the father’s Alzheimer’s. Thankfully, there’s not much focus on this possibility, but it could potentially have been a bad look if Karahan had further delved into that subject. The film’s thematic complexity helps it avoid any insensitivities, but it is one of the few areas where the director almost risks making an outdated and prejudicial link between illness, disability, and the supernatural.
Importantly, what helps make the film such a success is Karahan’s writing, which is thoughtful and layered, along with the terrific acting by much of the ensemble. The cast brings genuine emotion to characters who are often carrying decades of frustration, grief, and resentment. The child actors in the first main segment are particularly impressive, capturing the confusion and deep emotions of children dealing with the loss of their mother. As the adult Deniz, İlhan Şen skillfully portrays staggering grief and pain, while Demet Özdemir gives Ceren a strong sense of longing and underlying emotional conflict as she struggles with the untenable position that society and her family have placed her in. Kaan Yıldırım gives perhaps the most towering performance as Halit, a man hardened by his lack of opportunities and the responsibilities that have been placed on him. His frustration and anger are palpable, and Yıldırım communicates both without ever losing sight of the character’s devotion to his family.
With Djinn Wedding, Ferit Karahan has crafted a powerful film that spans decades. His use of the Eastern Anatolian landscape, his increasingly confident narrative and visual style, and his thematic explorations create a highly ambitious and engaging work. The film is easily one of the strongest entries in the Platform competition at this year’s festival, and it shows a director whose talent continues to grow. Djinn Wedding is an exciting and immersive film that should put Karahan on the map as an international arthouse director worth keeping a close eye on.