Educational Media Reviews Online

As a short film, In the Morning dramatically and very effectively exposes the issue of "honor killings" in less than ten minutes. The film grabs the attention of the viewer instantly. Scenes of the gory rape of a young woman juxtaposed with the rather furtive, hushed reactions and plans of the male members to restore family honor are chilling. The solution (not justice) is to penalize the victim who brought this disgrace and who will then not be around to painfully and constantly remind the family about the shame. To make matters worse, the person chosen to restore honor to the family is a young immature boy. The portrayal of the innocence (albeit lost) of the young rape victim and the terrible unspeakable anguish of the forced juvenile eradicator in the film is par excellence.

The reasons or importance of selecting non-Turkish actors who spoke Turkish lines phonetically was not evident from the film. However, one of the reasons according to Lurie, as reported by Media That Matters Film Festival Website http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/6/in_the_morning/ is that “no Turkish actors would agree to be a part of a film that touched on the issue of Honor Killings; most claiming that such a practice simply does not exist.” This film makes an excellent attempt to expose the injustice of honor killings, but lacks details about the broader context needed to understand the issue and its prevalence better. Exposing a problem gets the attention, but will be appreciated and valued more when it is placed in context. Perhaps Danielle Lurie plans to bring more of that into the feature length version of In the Morning. Overall, this film is a compelling narrative and will provide a superb setting for class discussions about honor killings, gender issues, social traditions or taboos.