Metamps(i)pirical: Believing in Reincarnation with Reason as a Cyclical ‘Lie’ in Halef
Aleyna ZaimThroughout history, humanity has questioned the meaning of its existence and sought different answers to these questions. Every living thing will taste death one day, and the mind can sometimes leave people helpless despite death and the vastness of the universe. In the idea that man’s greatest fear is death, it is possible to see that the fear of death is hidden in the most secret, deepest place and that man covers it with many things. For this reason, the fear of death is a reason why people write themselves as heroes in the narratives in which they are reborn. The aim of this study is to consider the human being as an unwritten tablet in Murat Düzgünoğlu’s movie Halef (2018); the idea that the mind can also be shaped by extrasensory archetypes and the idea of rebirth, which is seen as the main theme of the film, will be discussed within the framework drawn by Jung, as an antithesis to this idea, with the scepticism that is embedded in the narrative of the film. Although the path chosen by the story telling is reincarnation, this article focuses on reincarnation, just as death turns into rebirth; it focuses on the inner journey of man, his symbolic manifestations, and the transformation of consciousness into the unconscious and the unconscious into consciousness. To continue this philosophical discussion, the necessity of applying a hermeneutic approach was envisaged, and the movie Halef was discussed within the framework of the dominant symbols and themes in the movie.
“Metamps(i)piral”: Döngüsel Bir ‘Yalan’ Olarak Halef Filminde Ruh Göçüne Akılla İnanmak
Aleyna Zaimİnsanlık tarih boyunca varoluşunun anlamını sorgulamış ve bu sorulara farklı cevaplar aramıştır. Her canlı bir gün ölümü tadacaktır ve akıl, ölümün karşısında, evrenin genişliği karşısında insanı kimi zaman çaresiz bırakabilmektedir. İnsanın en büyük korkusunun ölüm olduğu fikrinde, ölüm korkusunun en gizli, en derin yerde saklanıp kaldığını ve insanın onun üstünü birçok şeyle örttüğünü görmek mümkündür. Ölüm korkusu, insanın kendisini yeniden doğduğu anlatıların baş kahramanı olarak yazmasında bir sebeptir bu nedenle. Bu çalışmanın amacı Murat Düzgünoğlu’nun Halef (2018) filminde insanı yazılmamış bir tablet olarak ele almaktır; filmin anlatısına da işlemiş olan şüphecilikle bu fikre antitez olarak zihnin duyu ötesi arketiplerle de şekillenebileceği ve filmin ana teması olarak görülen yeniden doğuş fikri, Jung’un çizdiği çerçevede tartışılacaktır. Hikâye anlatısının seçtiği yol her ne kadar reenkarnasyon olsa da bu makale, nasıl ki ölümün yeniden doğuma dönüşmesiyse reenkarnasyon; insanın içsel yolculuğuna, sembolik tezahürlerine ve tersine bir biçimde bilincin, bilindışına ve bilinçdışının da bilince dönüşmesine odaklanmaktadır. Bu felsefi tartışmayı sürdürebilmek adına hermeneutik yaklaşıma başvurmanın gerekliliği öngörülmüş, Halef filmi filmde yer alan baskın semboller ve temalar çerçevesinde tartışılmıştır.
Considering film as a way of thinking requires unravelling the symbols that remain hidden both within the narrative and within the aesthetics specific to the film; these meanings provide some information about the essence of the text and, on the other hand, the essence of the human being who is its creator. Mortal man has questioned the meaning of his existence throughout history, made himself immortal by producing various outputs in order to eternalise his existence, and reincarnated in every mind that imagines it. Thus, the fear of death became a catalyst in the creation of man trying to make himself immortal. In this regard, although the extent to which a film can be philosophical or contribute to philosophical knowledge is a matter of debate in itself, according to general acceptance, many films overlap with traditional and contemporary philosophical issues in some way. In this sense, the audiovisual expression and philosophical structure of cinema can be considered as an outcome of human beings’ self-understanding, and in this regard, the movie Halef is thought to be important in continuing this discussion.
The term tabula rasa, in its most familiar form, discusses whether the souls of newborns are blank slates to be filled in later by experience and reasoning, or whether they exist as tablets on which the laws of nature and Adam’s sins are inscribed as signs of their mission at birth. The blank slate conceptualisation argues that people are born with a neutral mind from birth and that environmental factors, education, culture, and personal experiences shape the mind and personality of the individual. The idea of rebirth, on the other hand, is a doctrine in which the soul is reborn in a new body after death. This belief is prevalent in Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Eastern religions and envisions the soul moving from one life cycle to the next to reach spiritual maturity. The idea of rebirth and reincarnation holds that the individual will continue to exist in a new life with knowledge, experience, and karma from past lives. In parallel with his emphasis on the collective unconscious, Jung sees the fantasy of rebirth as one of the archetypes that are independent of individual experience and emerge and are transmitted through the experience of generations. In this sense, although archetypes cannot be fully known and limited, they can be traced imaginatively through their psychic representations. In this sense, the aim of this article is to treat Murat Düzgünoğlu’s film Halef as a philosophical inquiry, discussing existence and extinction, and even the desire not to exist, through the images and symbols in the film through Locke’s “tabula rasa” and Jung’s archetype of “rebirth”.
It is thought that it is necessary to apply a hermeneutic approach to continue this philosophical debate. Hermeneutic is the art of interpreting the meaning of texts and works of art, and in this context, an analysis was made on the dominant symbols and themes in the film. The movie Halef re-evaluates man’s existential questions and fear of death through symbols and themes, and in this direction, it continues the discussion of Halef’s search for identity, Mahir’s essence that he avoids confronting, and his identity that he recreates under the influence of his illness. In addition, this study does not seek an answer to this mystery of humankind, but only questions the continuity of the cyclical and mythical narrative through this ambivalent structure and transforming representations.
In this study, in which the universality claim and symbols of the Halef movie are examined, the axis mundi symbols are discussed through Jung’s archetypes, especially the well; It is associated with the sacred mountain and the tree of life. The last scene of the film represents a reversal of all balances and a break in the central axis. Initiatory death reiterates the paradigmatic return to chaos to enable the repetition of cosmogony, that is, to prepare for a new birth. Based on Eliade’s distinction between sacred and profane, the sacred is the revelation of the absolute truth, while the transformation of the characters of the film, Mahir and Halef, is interpreted as the flow between the sacred and the profane, the unconscious and the conscious. Based on Locke’s defence of knowledge gained through experience, this questioning process was handled with a hermeneutical approach and supported by symbols in the film, since humans cannot experience death. In this sense, it seems possible to infer that the essence of the film and the basis of human life is “doubt,” in parallel with the method of this study, its conceptual framework, and the philosophical inquiry established both within the film itself and in parallel with it within the work itself.
