Annie Hall Goes To Turkey


Everybody loves "Annie Hall", right?  It's probably Woody Allen's most beloved and well-known film, the one that comes closest to a perfect execution of his quirky, psycho-intellectual humor, his sweet loss-tinged reflections on romance, and of course, his ardent love for the city of New York.  But a funny thing happened to "Annie Hall" when I showed it in Turkey- it just wasn't funny anymore.

Trabzon lies in the northeast corner of Turkey on the Black Sea, relatively near to Georgia and Armenia, places where no Turk I know has ever ventured, Turkey not having the best of relations with any of its neighbors.  (The border with Armenia has been closed since 1993).  The English language and literature students there on the surface look like many university students in the West- they wear jeans, they talk on their phones and forward stupid attachments to each other, they complain about how much work they have to do, they flirt.  Below the surface however, there is an uncanny level of similarity in terms of politico-socio-religious positioning.  Turkish culture is very group-oriented, and you don't see the overstated displays of "individuality", "non-conformity", and "creativity" so rampant on college campuses in the West.  Of course these kinds of displays are not only allowed for but encouraged in the West to such a degree that they merely offer the illusion of being different.  In Turkey, loyalty to the group: one's peers, classmates, friends, family, and nation is the norm which few people have any apparent desire to deviate from.

I started a weekly American film club to help the students learn more about American culture.  I purposely tried to showcase the diversity of the country and the many different ways of life found there.  I showed them "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" "Elephant", "Donnie Darko".  I briefed and de-briefed them, answered questions candidly, and hoped that discussing my own culture and country critically might help them turn a more critical and balanced eye on their own.  However, it mainly just helped them criticize the United States more effectively.  In fact I regularly receive tasteless anti-Bush and anti-American forwards from my former students on Facebook.

Bearing in mind Turkish culture's emphasis on group loyalty, Allen's homage to urban self-absorption, his litany to what we think of as the modern human condition, was pretty much lost on my students.  All those great jokes about Alfie and Annie and their respective shrinks, and Alfie's humorous reflections on his three ex-wives and their peculiar sexual tendencies- "You're using sex to express hostility!" - were suddenly going down like lead balloons.  The couple's decision to move in together without a thought of marriage except Alfie's wish that Annie would keep her apartment to avoid any resemblance to it, after spending almost six months in this conservative corner of Turkey, suddenly seemed so...odd.  Sure they loved the lobster scene, mostly out of horror that anyone would consider eating something that looked like that, but my careless decision to show them a light and funny film, one very dear to me, landed me in some totally unexpected waters.

After the movie, I led my usual group discussion.  I explained that the film depicts a lifestyle that's very "New York" and saw itself as very "modern", and that most Americans are more conservative than these characters.  Of course, my students all know I'm from New York, and standing there in essence describing my own way of life to a group of almost if not totally exclusively twenty-something virgins, I started to feel like a lawless whore.  But, they probably think that because I'm nice, I've never had sex either.  And they would never dream that I'm divorced.  (Divorced women have a low status in Turkey and a slim chance of remarrying).

I asked them what they thought about the film, if they thought it was funny.  

"No, it's not funny", one girl said.  "It's sad. The people seem so lost".

"Yes," a boy agreed. "He keeps going from relationship to relationship, and he will never be happy".

I agreed that the film has notes of sadness.  That's what so many of us Westerners love about Allen's films, that depiction of hardened self-reliance on a melancholic backdrop of loneliness.  But whereas when we watch "Annie Hall" and think "Isn't that just like life?", my Turkish youths just thought "What kind of life is that?"  Annie Hall had ceased to be a delightful and moving slice of New York pie, and had become a fable of Western emptiness.

Love in Turkey is ceaselessly depicted as dramatic, desperate, and often painful.  It's not all roses, although you might think so if you saw all the fake flowers and doilies in their houses, and fractalized red rose picture attachments they love to send.  They are a romantic people, and revel in both fairy-tale happy endings and tragic tropes of loss.  However, one thing love is not meant to be, in my student's eyes, is intellectual.  It is one thing to find tragedy in the natural course of love, usually caused by familial disagreements, death on the field of battle, or some Romeo and Juliet-style fatal communication error.  But to suffer in love because of your foolish unwillingness to commit, or some neurotic sexual problem- ("Our sexual problem, I'm sorry MY SEXUAL PROBLEM"), or because your relationships tend to be fluid, undefined, and based on having a good time, well, that's your own stupid fault.

Faced with my student's almost universal perception of the film as a moralistic lesson against Western culture, I felt a rush to defend my way of life.  How could I explain to them what they were missing?  I wanted to tell them that I loved my culture because at a party with my boyfriend, I could drunkenly point out a former sexual conquest and he wouldn't mind at all, but might feel somehow proud of me.  I loved all my sad and sweet memories of past relationships that had failed, and valued what I had learned from them.  I loved that I went to a psychologist when I was their age, and moaned about my parents and about the friends who always betrayed me by going after the boys I liked.  

But of course, I couldn't say any of this.  And pondering it, I started to wonder if they should really envy me.  They, after all, have a culture which, in my observations, doesn't punish people for not being able to compete.  My students were so nice to each other; no one was an outsider, everyone was part of the group, and no one would steal someone else's sweetheart.  Anyway, few of them have sex at all until they're married.  In my college days, the same as in high school, everyone was separated into these cliques and categories, and sex- to have it, not to have it, when, how- was a constant worry and pressure, especially for girls.  

Suddenly, Alfie's trail of failed relationships- "I don't understand it.  A year ago, Annie and I, we were so in love" - seemed to mirror my own.  There in front of a group of rather well-adjusted young people, focused not on arty films, introspection and base-level anxiety, but on working hard to bring honor to themselves and their families, I experienced a completely unexpected view of my own culture as harboring, as one student had put it, people who seem lost.  

Of course, I wouldn't change places with them for anything.  I value my personal freedom intensely.  But I'm more aware now than ever that that's only because I was indoctrinated with this value the way they are with xenophobic nationalism.  (Or course, America has its fair share of that too).  I've watched "Annie Hall" since and I still love it, but it does seem to me a more somber film than I used to think it.  I sometimes think of Alfie and Annie, and how they've been in love over and over, each time surprised anew when their relationships fail, and wonder how they keep going.  It seems less like fate and more like foolishness.  But not to say I'd give up the Western way of life- I'm comfortable in my culture, as the Turks are in theirs.  Hegemony is a warm blanket, and humor, apparently, is seeing reflections of your own culture and finding it funny.

Renee Therriault

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