Otobüs; Whose Story is This?

Serhan’s article on the movie Otobüs (Okan, 1976*) gave me inspiration to continue his discussion. Serhan makes a detailed summary of the plot, therefore I would like to directly focus on the movie itself.

I would like to start with the explanations of the director of the move, Tunç Okan;

“Başlangıçtan beri yapmak istediğim bir çatışmayı bir büyük uyumsuzluğu, aykırılığı ortaya koymaktı. Tekniğiyle, aşırı gelişmiş tüketim toplumu ile az gelişmiş toplumun insanlarını karşı karşıya getirmek. Bunların birbirleri ile olan ve kendi içlerindeki çelişkiyi, aralarındaki korkunç çatışmayı vurgulamak istedim… Yoksa sansürün ve bazı aydınlarımızın iddia ettiği gibi ne Türk işcisini, ne Türk insanını, ne de herhangi bir milletin insanını küçük düşürmek değildi amacım. Filmdeki işciler Türk değil, herhangi az gelişmiş bir toplumun insanları da olabilirdi. Türk olmaları bir rastlantıdır, İtalyan yada İspanyol olsalar film bildirisinde bir şey kaybetmeyecekti.**”

The Invisibles in The Bus

The Bus (Otobüs, 1976) is the story of a group of illegal Turkish workers who are stuffed in a scrap bus to travel from Turkey to Europe, where they are told they would find a job easily. The journey ends in the city center of Stockholm, Sweden. The driver, who is a member of a human smuggling network, takes all their money and passports, and then disappears. Defrauded by the driver, the workers, whom are all men coming from villages in Turkey and never have been in a big city before, do not dare to leave the bus. During the day, they sit inside the bus, the curtains drawn, frightened to be caught by police. At night, they find the courage to go out for natural needs and explore the city. They are lucky to find a lavatory nearby inside the metro station. Their first experiences with the city harbors absurd elements: Making a team of two people each time through on the way to toilets, inside a telephone booth in metro station, they see a woman and man having sex; inside the toilet a guy asks for hash. Then, they wander the city all together. They look at show windows of erotic shops, electronics equipments, underwear stores, garments. After seeing a police officer, they escape; however, one of them (Tuncel Kurtiz) gets lost. In the morning, on a bridge, we see him perching. After a while, he falls to the icy sea. There we understand that he is frozen at night. A Swedish passerby sees him fall and does nothing but say: “Filthy stranger”. The night after, as they have already consumed all their food, they try to find food in the trash cans. One of them (Tunç Okan) meets with a guy in the toilet. He is taken to a strange party full of men in suits and women in night dresses. In the party, porn movies are watched, and a playboy contest is organized where the winner is awarded with a statue of an erected penis. Then, an orgy commences. As the guy with the worker tries to get closer with the worker, he gets mad, starts to eat what is on the table. Later, he is thrown out and then gets killed outside the club. Meantime, members of a theater club wearing masks follow the other workers on the streets of Stockholm and trick them by plastic food and then make them escape back to the bus. The bus is a home for them. It is safer than outside and everybody know each other there.