Mustang - New Dress Sequence - MISE-EN-SCENE

Question 1

What do the girls transition to and from in costume?

Answer 1

School uniform > Casual clothing > Brown dresses > White (Wedding)

Question 2

What do their school uniforms signify at the beginning of the film?

Answer 2

• still have the freedom able to go to school
• same as everyone else foreshadowing their oppressive as they are still in uniform
• messy uniform

Question 3

What do their causal clothing signify?

Answer 3

• freedom to express
• liberal

Question 4

What do their brown ‘shit coloured’ dresses signify?

Answer 4

• bland and basic - takes away the girls individuality
• entrapment
• all the same colour - no identity

Question 5

What does white clothing represent?

Answer 5

• child marriage (forced into)
• entrapment
• forced transition into womanhood - wife

Question 6

What do their brown coloured dresses signify during the sequence?

Answer 6

• signify their personality and themselves being taken away from them
• purity is celebrated

Question 7

What kind of props show that they are still children?

Answer 7

Bikinis, pink ball, Lale’s white dress

Question 8

What does the white around Lale and her white dress symbolise?

Answer 8

• she is a child and full of innocence

Question 9

What do the bars going up whilst they sunbathe represent?
and
Lighting?

Answer 9

• bars going up like a prison
• light up from outside - bars cast shadows onto them

Question 10

How was Mustang filmed?

Answer 10

• On location
• adds to the authenticity - rural setting depicted as a place of conformity - rooted in tradition with strict patriarchal rules

Question 11

What does the prop of the SEX BOOK signify?

Answer 11

• a forced transition for girls to leave behind their childhood innocence linking to child marriage in Turkey

Question 12

What does the prop of CAR KEYS symbolise?

Answer 12

• used by Lale as a means of escape - can escape and gain her freedom from oppression

Question 13

What does the grandmother remove?

Answer 13

• removes possessions that may corrupt them and replaces them with props linked to cooking, cleaning and sewing to be good wives and domesticate them to be submissive to the patriarchal rule

Question 14

What does their family home become?

Answer 14

• becomes their prison, as the Uncle, determined to bring the young girls into line - imprisons them
• freedom stripped away as bars added to the windows, walls and gates to prevent their escape towards a more independent lifestyle