The Cockroach

A cod-Freudian drama (from a novel by Erhan Bener) about an Istanbul police chief who dreams back over his life while dying in an ambulance bound for hospital. His pathological hatred of cockroaches seems to be a metaphor for the fascistic imbalance of his mind. His harsh treatment as a young man and the blame that accrued to him for the fiery death of his sister are presented as the motors for his own brutality. (We see him abusing prisoners, but what is the sequence in which he hunts down Leninist revolutionaries meant to be about?) Less clear are his reasons for marrying a slatternly asthmatic young woman who refuses him sex, love and respect. From the evidence here Istanbul seems in a severe state of run-down, unless that's meant to be another expressionistic device. A far from rosy picture of Turkey. Shame about the grating repetitive piano score.