42 pagesKabuslarından kurtulup içinde rahat uyuyacağı evi ararken emlakçı tarafından yanlıslıkla bos bir evin terasına kilitlenen genç bir kadının hikâyesini ele alan Teras adlı kısa film, mini dv formatında, İstanbul'da üç farklı mekanda çekildi. Çekim tarihleri 27-28 Mayıs ve 2-3 Haziran'dır. Film, genç bir kadının gece gördüğü kabusla baslar. Genç kadın, basta sıradan bir olay gibi göründüğü için gerçek sanılan bir kötü rüya görür. Bir sonraki sahnede, genç kadının ertesi sabah sokakta birini beklediğini görürüz. Bir adam kadına yaklasır, selamlasır, birlikte yürümeye baslarlar. Bir arabaya biner ve kısa bir süre yolculuk ederler. Bir apartman kapısını açıp içeri girerler. Bir süre sonra çıkarlar. Üçüncü seferinde, arabayı ters bir yere park ederek bir binadan içeri girerler. Merdivenleri çıkarlar ve bu kez onlarla birlikte daire kapısından içeri gireriz. Bos bir apartman dairesindedirler. Kadın evi dolasır, kendisiyle diyalog kurmak isteyen emlakçıyla diyaloga girmekten kaçınır. Emlakçı da onu kendi haline bırakıp bekler. Kadın bir odaya girince, emlakçı da pencere kenarına gider ve yaslanır. Dısarıdan bir korna sesi geldiğini duyar. Arabasını çekmesi gerekmektedir. Kadına beklemesi için seslenip aceleyle çıkar. Genç kadın kapı gürültüsünü duyunca bulunduğu odadan çıkıp bakar, sonra evi dolasmaya devam ederek mutfağa yönelir. Mutfakta, bir teras kapısı vardır. Kadın kapıdan dısarı çıkar, arkasından kapatır. Emlakçı bir süre sonra geri dönünce onu arar, terastaki kadını kör noktada olduğu için göremez, sıkıntılı bir tavırla teras kapısının anahtarını çevirip çeker gider. Kadın terastan kurtulmaya çalısırken, yukarıdan, belirsiz bir yerden bir yatak siltesi gürültüyle terasa düser. Kadın silteyi kısa bir süre inceler, düsünmek için üzerine oturur, uzanır ve uyuyakalır. Gece onun üzerinde, terasta iyi bir uyku çeker. Ertesi sabah baska müsterileri dolastırmak için gelen ve kendini bulan emlakçıdan evi kiralar. Buraya yerlesir. Tasındığı gece, kabusları tekrarlanınca yatağıyla birlikte terasa tasınır ve ertesi sabah yedek anahtarlarla gelen emlakçı onu tekrar bulur; kadın kabuslarından bu sekilde biraz daha uzaklasmıstır.Terrace is a short film that is about a young woman who is trying to run away
from her nightmares. During her search for a new house to sleep comfortably in, she is
accidently locked into a terrace by the real state agent. It was shot on mini dv.
The film begins with a nightmare scene. Young woman has a nightmare, which
looks like an ordinary incident and therefore thought to be real at the beginning. In the
next scene, it is daytime and the woman is waiting at a street corner. A man approaches
him, they shake hands and walk away. They get into a car and travel for a short time.
They open the door of an apartment building and go in. They come out after a little while.
They repeat this. They ride in the car again and park at an unlikely spot. They climb the
stairs of an building. They enter an apartment, close the door behind them. We now see
that they are in an empty apartment. While the woman walks around the house, the real
estate agent thies to talk to her but when she is unresponsive he lets her be and waits at a
corner. He hears a car honk from outside and he looks out of the window; he needs to
remove his car. He tells her to wait and goes out. When she hears the door, she comes out
of a room and keeps looking at the house. She enters a kitchen adn finds a door leading to
a terrace. She goes out, closes the door behind her. When real estate agent returns, he
looks inside the house but he van not find her. He looks out of the terrace door bur the is
standing at a blind spot. He locks the terrace door and leaces, thingking she has left.
Woman is now alone in the terrace and she soon understands that she is locked in there.
While she is trying to figure a way to get out, a matress loudly falls on the floor. She
examines the matress and sits on it. She soon falls asleep. Next morning, the real estate
agent returns to the house with new clients. He founds the girl. They shake hands and at
the next scene, we see her moving into the house with the terrace. The night she settles in,
she has another nightmare. So she moves into the terrace again with her bed and other
bedroom furniture. Real estate agent finds her in the terrace again next morning. By
sleeping on the terrace, she has found a way to get away from her nightmares.
I planned this scenario to be an escape story, a spritual escape story. Escape is a
common theme in all genres of film. It can be adapted to every genre, it is a strong
motive and valid conflict. Many stories, which do not look like escape stories at the
beginning are actually are stories about escaping. Action in physical escape is very clear;
it is either about getting as far away as possible or taking shelter somewhere. But I
wanted to go a little more deeper and tell a sublime running away story. The scenario
was born from this idea and became increasingly personal, spiritual. Because I noticed
that the action of escaping could be more interesting then the person running away or the
thing he/she is running away from. I wanted to replace the thing/person/event that
caused the escape with a personal and more sublime trouble. This way, I could
contribute to the univeral theme from a different point of view. Instead of memories/ a
tramvatic event of the past, I choose nightmares. Because the nightmares are totally
subjective and their certainity is even more cloudy then of memories. They are hard to
commmunicate even when told in detail and they are flexible enough to express almost
any distressful thought or event. If escaping is a process, the thought of someone who
fnds the peace he/she is looking for in an unlikely time and place is the main conflict in
this story.
When the process of escape is hindered, the character is supposed to feel the
pressure of her instinct to run away more and more. But having to stop also leaves a
space for thoughts and mind to act. To end the process of escaping, a person may need to
see what happens when he/she stops, faits and faces the music.
The starting point of this story was stopping instead of runing. Hers not an actual
physical escape, she was changing places as a statemnt of her desire to get away from
what was within her mnd and thoughts. Accidently being locked somewhere was the
most natural event to hinder her running and being locked in an open but retricted area
made everything more interesting.
I also needes some other event to symbolize her own decision to stop. She had to
stop at the beginning, being locked up in a confined area. But once she stops, she decides
it is better to stop and I looked for a way; a moment or event to underline this decision.
Being locked up did not emphasize her decision the way I wanted all by itself. The idea
of a bed falling from the sky was born at this moment. It adds a taste of supernatural
into the film, and it is symbolically powerful. It gave the needed bounce to the story. But
that moment was also buried inside the slow rhytm of the film. I tried to make the falling
bed look as sublime as possible. I did not want to display that moment and immediate
after as an anomaly.
When the nightmare scene in the film is repeated, the character moves to the
terrace with her bed and this action underlines her decision to give up running away from
her dreams. Dream squences are used by directors that apply a special meaning to dreams
(such as David Lynch) and they rarely play an important aestethic role in the film. But
dreams which are hard to describe with words can be considered as the place where all
passions of subconsciousness flow without restrain. The fact that the dream character
in the film appears gradually further away from the girl, supports the idea that she is
getting further and further away from her darker thoughts. He is lying right next to her at
the beginning the first time, and the second time he is at the foot of the bed. The third
time, he is behind a closed door, being dreamed by the main character between sleeping
and waking.
The nightmare scenes in the film are not only simple devices for reflecting the
characters state of mind, they are also narrative devices that determine the beginning,
development and end of the story. They change the flow of events and trigger new
events, while describing the inner world of the character.
There are three dream/fantasy scenes in the film and there is a bed that falls to the
floor out of nowhere; but this film is still about a very ordinary story of a girl trying to
find a new home and the real state agent that helps her. I tried to keep the film real and
tried to mix the fantastic scenes into the texture of general story, without breaking the
general rhytm.
The influence that a little accident -being locked up- could have on someones life
is one of the other things that interested me. In this story, the mishap turns to be her luck
and I am always interested in how unexpected can change customary. I also wanted to
take up the issue of home and belonging to a place with four walls. Arranging living
space to ones liking and wanting a place of ones own is a basic instinct. But this desire
to own could also be limiting
