There’s a conversation near the start of “Hysteria” that many moviegoers have long wanted to hear as Elif (Devrim Lingnau), a second assistant director tasked with driving home some extras after a long day of shooting. Mustafa (Aziz Capkurt) and Said (Mehdi Meskar) had few lines on the set, but have plenty to say afterwards about the scene they just filmed, in which they survey the scene of a racially motivated fire based on a true event in Germany that took the lives of five Turkish residents. As the three unwind, Mustafa brings up the lazy provocation of the scene, not originally in the script, but sprung on the actors on the day to capture a real reaction on screen where among the things burned in the house was a Quran that the director Yigit decided would be a real one for extra effect. Mustafa is not a man of faith, but certain that it will needlessly agitate the Turkish community beyond being a dead end dramatically and while he rolls his eyes about his own participation in representing them in this way, you can practically imagine the hosannas that will greet the film upon its release for being so bold and controversial by non-Turkish audiences.
Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s killer second feature plays more like an Agatha Christie mystery than a satire, but it is a wickedly good time when you usually can’t tell the difference. The director is interested in confusing that issue amongst others when it takes a beat to realize what you’re actually watching is a film being made about another film, opening with surveillance footage that turns out to be part of Yigit’s vision for a serious drama about an infamous terrorist attack. Once the footage is in the can, Elif is tasked with dropping off Mustafa and Said and taking the film cassettes home to the apartment that the director shares with his professional and personal partner Lilith, the real reason that anyone is working on the film as a revered filmmaker in her own right, lending her credibility to her husband. Elif, who has a Turkish father, is strictly concerned with impressing the filmmaking couple, having her own industry ambitions, but she becomes aware that she may be handling a hot potato when Majid (Nazmi Kirik), another Turkish crew member on the film, takes issue with what they shot and Mustafa brings up his concerns.
After losing the keys to Lilith and Yigit’s apartment on her way there – easily remedied by a kindly locksmith, Elif faces a far greater concern when the tapes of the Quran footage goes missing and she has to remember who’s come and gone from the apartment and consider all the potential motives people might have to take the tapes, including her superiors who could buy a couple days of much-needed reshoots with an insurance claim. Like any good whodunit, “Hysteria” gives all involved a credible opportunity and motive, especially when the inexperienced Elif can only handle so much responsibility, but Büyükatalay finds so much more that’s criminal in this case that no laws were ever written for.
Naturally, the finger is immediately pointed at the Turkish extras, though as Lilith herself comes to admit it’s not a good look for a production intended to end prejudice, and the reasons for making the film-within-a-film come under as much scrutiny by Büyükatalay as who stole the tapes. The writer/director shrewdly observes much hypocrisy as Elif scrambles to save her job and everyone involved is concerned about how they appear, but the hierarchy on the production comes to mirror that of society where the ones closest to the truth of the matter are the least empowered to express themselves. With “Hysteria” starting out with a fire, it only makes sense that it ends with one too, but Büyükatalay brilliantly sees beyond the chemical elements that make celluloid so highly flammable in creating such searing entertainment, setting a flamethrower on filmmakers so committed to their version of reality they’re pushing a fiction.
“Hysteria” will screen again at the Berlin Film Festival on February 17th at 10 pm at the Cubix 7, February 18th at 2 pm at the Odeon and 9:45 pm at the Filmtheater am Friedrichshain and February 21st at 9:30 pm at the Zoo Palast 1.