The Fragility of Togetherness: Reflections On the City, Home and Family

Abstract

This article deals with the home and family as socio-economic projections of urban fate through the film Köprüdekiler (Men on the Bridge, 2009). Accordingly, a desire for having a better life dominates spatial expectations and triggers marital conflicts. At this point, just as family bonds do not correspond to unconditional commitments, home is no longer a mental or spiritual shelter for couples. Belongings are ambivalent; intimacies are uncanny, and ties are weak. In this article, the condition of social fragility is debated through two characters, Umut and Cemile, in the film. They are married but unhappy. Köprüdekiler is a film that zooms in the lives of those who are pushed away from the centre to the margins of society in Istanbul. In this paper, it is concentrated on the city as being both a hopeful and disappointing dilemma; on the home as a place of vulnerability; and on the family as a modern symbol of fragility. The analyzed awarded-film deepens and elaborates the socio-urban reality by reflecting it simply as it is.

Keywords

• the city
• home
• family
• togetherness
• conflict
• men on the bridge