Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures

Abstract

“I am not in love with you / I am in love with your image / Your image is not you / It is my imagination.” [1] In the movie “Sevmek Zamani,” shot in 1965, the protagonist falls in love with a woman he had seen in a photograph. The iconic dialog quoted above, they engaged once met in person, reveals that he is much more attached to the affection he developed for the individual in the “image.” The individual in the photograph is his construction of her, not necessarily her. This construction is also evident in the spatial settings of scenes depicting the interaction between the protagonist and the image embedded in the filmic space. This recalls the painter and the invisible surface of a painting painted on the picture plane of “Las Meninas.” In his interpretation of the painting, published in 1966, Foucault explains that whoever exchanges glances with the painter may be painted on the surface of the painting. However, this interaction does not remain entirely invisible to the audience since the painted parties may be revealed through their reflection in the mirror in the center of the picture plane. In Sevmek Zamani, on the other hand, the affection developed for the image is not reflected but articulated through lived space, as imagined by the protagonist. Hence, the presentation explores the double-fold construction of lived space represented in the film’s scenes. [1] Metin Erksan. Sevmek Zamanı (Time to Love), Istanbul, 1965.