White as Snow (2010)

SYNOPSIS - WHITE AS SNOW

The film based on the short story “Ayran” of Sabahattin Ali starts with a scenery from a wedding in one of the villages of the Eastern Black Sea region. The peasants dance vigorously to the “horon”. The song “ondort” starts and the blacksmith Halil and a young peasant begin to dance.  After a while, suddenly the music stops. Two gendarmes have come to arrest the blacksmith Halil. The blacksmith Halil is handcuffed and taken to the prison accompanied by the inauspicious silence, now dominating the wedding.

The snow on a cold winter day and the wolves howling in the darkness of the dawn appraise the come of a challenging wintertime. Hasan is a twelve-year old boy, who struggles for life with his two siblings in a small mountain village. Upon the imprisonment of the father, the family has fallen into poverty. His mother starts to work as a minder. The food brought by the mother, who can come to the village only once a week, lasts just for few days. Hasan remedies the situation by selling ayran to feed his siblings for the remaining days.  He can buy bread when he sells ayran to passengers. 

On a day, on which the cold of the winter freezes deep into the skin, Hasan takes his churn and reaches the teahouse along the road. Recep, who runs the teahouse waits for news from Fatma, who has been separated from Recep by her family. Recep tries to spend the time while waiting for news from Fatma by listening to the folk songs on the radio. Grandpa Kadir, who is from the same village like Hasan, has come to the teahouse to sell pears. In the minibus expected is a resentful Young Passenger, who has been appointed to a region, which he dislikes and who has had to leave his fiancée.

Upon the arrival of the minibus, Hasan runs to the bus stop to look for someone to sell his ayran. The back window of the minibus is opened and the Young Passenger wants to have one.

Hasan, cannot sell ayran as he does not have change. It means, that he has to wait a little bit more to bring bread home. When the bus stop becomes desolate, Grandpa Kadir returns to the village. Hasan continues to wait at the bus stop.

Meanwhile, the Mother is in the house in the province, the Blacksmith Halil in his prison ward, Recep in the tea corner of the tea house, the Young Passenger in the hotel and Grandpa Kadir on the snowy road.

Finally, another minibus arrives, but there are no passengers in. The Driver Sinan gives Recep the long awaited letter and disappears in the darkening day.

All of a sudden, the Mother decides to return to the village. The Blacksmith Halil, Recep, the Young Passenger and Grandpa Kadir are in deep regret. Hasan, on the way back home gets exhausted by the hunger and cold. The howling of the nearing wolves panics him, so that he starts to run. While the shouting of Hasan’s mother, who is searching him” flows into the howling sound of the wolves, Hasan is at the other end of the forest...