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The Trace (İz-Rêç)

The Trace (İz-Rêç)

Movie · 2011 · 5 people

For his first feature, the 2011 Turkish drama İz-Rêç ("The Trace"), Tayfur Aydın served as both writer and director. Spoken in Turkish and Kurdish, it opened on December 9, 2011, and runs about 86 minutes. It is adapted from Yavuz Ekinci's short story İncir, and through the life of one woman it portrays the suffering of people forced to leave their land.

At its center is Şeristan, an old woman of around eighty living on the outskirts of Istanbul, an unschooled but wise woman who watches her children struggle in the city. When she falls gravely ill and senses her end approaching, she asks her son Mirza for one last thing: to take her to the land where she was born and bury her there. Mirza is reluctant to return to the home he left years ago, but agrees. Hevi, his son, in the midst of an identity crisis, opposes the trip from the start, yet the three set off by train. The journey bears witness to a lifelong secret and the sacrifices made to keep it.

Necmettin Çobanoğlu, Bilal Bulut and Melahat Bayram appear in the film, which was shot in Istanbul, Diyarbakır and Batman. Türker Korkmaz produced it, Emre Konuk was director of photography, Selim Demirdelen edited it and Mustafa Biber composed the music.

DirectorTayfur Aydın

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Cast

Necmettin Çobanoğlu Necmettin Çobanoğlu Actor · 73 years old Mirza Serdar Orçin Serdar Orçin Actor · 50 years old Bekir Bilal Bulut Melahat Bayram Ozan Diyar

Titles sharing this cast

Through different eyes

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The social weight of İz-Rêç lies in fitting the different marks displacement leaves on three generations into a single train journey. An old mother who wants to be buried where she was born, a son reluctant to return to the place he left years ago and a grandson in an identity crisis: each carries a different consequence of the same rupture. Turkish and Kurdish spoken together make the distance between life on the city's edge and the homeland left behind felt at the level of language too. The film chooses to tell migration not through numbers but through the silences within one family.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

In his first feature, which he both wrote and directed, Tayfur Aydın starts from a short story by Yavuz Ekinci. The familiar risk of turning a short story into a feature applies here too: stretching a dense, brief narrative to feature length can thin out the rhythm in places. On the other hand, the train journey is a smart frame that partly offsets the problem with a road-movie structure; changing locations lend themselves to carrying the characters' inner change. The journey bearing witness to a lifelong secret also adds intrigue. In my view, it is a sincere debut that carries both the excitement and the limits of a first film.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humor and heart.

Built around a grandmother, her son and her grandson, this film is a meaningful choice to watch with the older generation at home. It offers a good opening to talk about longing for home and family ties. But illness and death are at the center of the story, and the storytelling is calm. Young children may get bored; it suits teenagers and adults better.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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