“Frenzy” Q &A session took place on Oct 25, 2015
 

 
Emin Alper (Director)
 
Q: Frenzy (Abluka) received the Special Jury Prize at the 2015 Venice International Film Festival.There are scenes where it makes us wonder whether it is a real life or a dream. Why did you give this title, Frenzy to the film?
 
Dir. Emin Alper: The film is about two brothers in madness, experiencing paranoia and completely lose themselves at the end. That why I picked the name “Frenzy”. The film’s Turkish title is different, it means “blockade”. We discussed on it but the Turkish title didn’t sound very good so we took “Frenzy” as the English title and “Blockade” as the Turkish title.
 
Q: Where did you get the idea from?
 
Dir. Emin Alper: The idea is totally imaginary. The first element of the story came into my mind in 2000. The situation of the society was tense as it was the end of the 90s and the political confrontation between Kurdish groups and the Turkish army. We are now having the same situation now again but we had the same problem for last 30 years.
 
Q: Is there a special reason that you didn’t explain the historical background and the real life situation of Turkey in your film?
 
Dir. Emin Alper: Actually there were two reasons. First of all, I wanted to make a universal film so I didn’t want to specify the time, locations and the armed group in the film. Secondly, I believed that if I specify the terrorist group and locations, people would discuss the factuality and the conformity of the film to the reality, which I really didn’t care at all. I wanted the audience to focus on the story only. For me, story can take place anywhere in the world. Especially in the third world.
 
Q: Have you ever had nightmares and got confuse by the reality and the dream?
 
Dir. Emin Alper: Yes, of course, many times. These ideas were also reflected in my dream.
 
Two brothers who are mostly in the film who seemed to be ordinary in the beginning starts having hallucination and imagination. You said you would like to make a universal film. Are you suggesting that this can happen to everyone?
 
Dir. Emin Alper: No, actually I am more interested in the political violence around the world and how these violent incidences change people. In this film, you can see how ordinary it is for the characters to get mad and paranoid and lead to their own destruction because of the political atmosphere and the operation of the state. This is the universal part I would like to emphasize, you may not have such experience in Japan but in many parts of the world you can still see rigorous conflicts which destroy the imagination of the people.
 
Q: Is the dog in the film a metaphor? Also the person who is looking for something in the trash can, is that another metaphor? When the wall is torn down and bricks are put back and repaired, is that a metaphor too?
 
Dir. Emin Alper: Only the first one is the metaphor. Killing dogs is a metaphor for terrorist hunting. Clearing the dogs on the street is a mirror image of the police clearing the terrorists in the city. The scene where the person is trying to look for something in the trash can refers to the surreal situation where the policemen are trying to arrest the terrorists. The third one hasn’t got an obvious meaning. It just shows the insanity of Ahmet which he tries to isolate himself from the outside.
 
Q: Is there any reason why you depicted the gradual process of madness taking over in such a fast pace?
 
Dir. Emin Alper: I wasn’t really interested in the chronicle reality as it is a film, an imagination, so I didn’t even check the fact and the chronicle process of paranoia I just focused on the authentic part to show the actual atmosphere and things that I was scared.