REMEMBERING THYSELF
"For once my tongue was tied, that was when someone came and asked me who I was"
Halil Cibran
That was the most fascinating phrase I have ever heard of. To search for its answer, was the most difficult path to follow..But I have started to comprehend the real meaning of my existence while searching an answer to this question.Here ,what I meant for "myself" was not singular. It was bequeathed from man to life and from that what I have inherited to remember...Each code , each cultural heritage bequeathed to mankind was belonging to me. And the question of who I am,gained meaning through thousands of years of accumulation.I believe that we start life by forgetting everything..kind of amnesia..I believe that each information opens a locked door in my memory and that door opens many others.The period that we call life, gets richer through how many doors we open and how much we do remember.And such reminiscences make people meet and unite.
Documentary is one of the most important instrument that multiplies these reminiscences. It reveals to us the map of the conscious.The map of the cultural consciousness of mankind that ages thousands of years.In order to prepare this map, the way the documentarists generally follow is to present the signs of the hidden or the forgetten truth under the concrete, material or "the visual"world.But there is another characteristic of the cultural heritage that we have inherited. It is the invisible realm of meaning which we generally could not see or sense.The invisible face that generates life..The invisible that formalizes the visible.Symbols or the cultural heritage created by symbols,which the documentary film uses time to time as a metaphorforical element, or which is totally left behind as pile of facts by the ones who believe in only conveying the ultimate truth ,need to be organized and conveyed. I believe in making documentaries on the world of symbols ,which I consider the other side of reality.This is a choice.When we start our journey as explaining where we live in, we create a model. the model of searching for information is either via visible or invisible. These are two different methods of reaching the truth ,one from the West and the other from the East.As an Eastern woman,which I am always proud of,I give great respect and importance to the way of thinking and method of reaching the truth of my ancestors.The East believes in not only the visual and the concrete definition of truth but also in the undefinable truth.Therefore ,the sophisticated ability of abstraction of the Eastern thinking and its high perception leads it to the truth with a different mode from the West.Even though the path of reaching the truth is different,the aim is to give meaning to life with its visible and unvisible signs that it offers to us.
I see the whole world of symbols as a mediator to understand a document or a culture ,and believe that dicreteness,both narrative and spiritual,should be included in the documentary tradition and new productions should be seen in that area.Otherwise,one face of the truth remains untold and incomplete.The documentary works ,in this sense should look at this untouched face and while making connections between symbols should set itself free and make new comments on perception of life.The symbols ,from the beginning of mankind are part of life ,part of relation between us, and part of the continuity of this relation.And there are so many things it could tell us at least with its face which we define concrete.
İSMET YAZICI
İstanbul, 2001
This communique is presented by İsmet Yazıcı on the 5th International Documentary Filmmakers Conference held under the title of "New approaches on documentary film" in 2001.