Yellow Letters

Derya (Özgü Namal) and Aziz (Tansu Biçer), an artistic and respected couple from Ankara, lead a relatively satisfying life in the Turkish capital. After the successful premiere of their latest play (he is a director, she is an actress – his muse), something unexpected happens: their theatrical “child” is taken down.

There is a reason (too absurd to seem real, yet very much so) why they become targets of repression. Within a few days, the couple finds themselves in a new reality – without jobs or prospects, but with mounting bills and emotional baggage to contend with. Their microcosm quickly collapses: friends are no longer friends, neighbours grow hostile, and soon Derya and Aziz are forced to leave their apartment and Ankara altogether. Unable to afford rent, they move in with Aziz’s mother in Istanbul.

Throughout the screening, one haunting question prevails: how much is Yellow Letters about the political, and how much about the personal? The film undoubtedly exposes the oppressive actions of Turkey’s conservative government, with its heavy reliance on censorship. Yet once the couple realise they can no longer work and that family is all they have left, a deeper crisis unfolds. Is their devotion to art – and to their daughter – enough to endure what they are feeling? As in a Mario Vargas Llosa novel, the system tears them apart from within.

Is this new reality the final straw for a relationship already marked by cracks and fissures? Or is it the government responsible for every fracture in their shared body, from which the essence of life slowly drains? Saying that Çatak leaves us with more questions than answers would be a bland cliché. The answers are there – but as we root for the couple, we may not want to see them. Derya and Aziz become opposites, each tempted to resent and mirror the system in their own way. This is what repression does, even to the most empathetic among us.

Between the lines, Yellow Letters offers a bleak take on relationships. At our worst, love may not be the answer. It may not be greater than the forces that stand in its way. We might have to fold our arms and hope that, this time, we will wake up with some sense of agency. Yet we do not. In a country like modern Turkey, even loving your partner begins to feel like a chore.

For these protagonists, marriage becomes just another burden – a battle they no longer have the strength to fight. The government has drained them, leaving only resentment and inertia in its wake. In this sense, Çatak’s drama is a vivisection of two people who can no longer cope with reality. And so they run – each in a different direction.