İlhan Yıldırım | Commentary/ TR724 NEWS — November 18, 2025
“In every separation, there is a trace of God; seek to find it.” — Fuzuli
We live in a world overflowing with people torn from their homes. War, dictatorship, famine, disease, and economic collapse have forced millions to abandon their homelands. These are strange times. We no longer live in “normal days.” Resting without worrying about tomorrow has become a luxury. Social time is unforgiving to everyone; it is woven from threads of anxiety and bewilderment.
In his 2025 film Gazelle, Turkish director Nadir Sarıbacak turns this global tragedy into intimate cinema. With an extraordinary performance, he carries to the screen the chaos and uncertainty of leaving everything behind while everyone around you insists you have no choice. He portrays the crushing burden of feeling responsible for a spouse and child left in a homeland you did not want to abandon. As Yakup, he embodies responsibility so intensely that it reverberates through every muscle, every expression. Watching him, my heart tightened.
For a small taste of power, tens of thousands of people in Turkey were forced into exile. Yakup, a music teacher, is one of them—pushed out of his personal paradise, Istanbul, and forced to seek refuge in New Jersey. Behind him is a family he longs to bring to safety. To reunite with them, he works desperately—accelerating his life, his job, his hope, and his hopelessness.
His heart never finds rest. Fear of missing a single opportunity drives him to take on more work than he can manage. He rushes to shorten distances, to compress time. He works in haste, eats in haste, speaks in haste. He cannot imagine that everything happening to him may carry meaning. His moments of calm are rare; almost every other moment pulses with anxiety.
And with each rush, something goes wrong—or remains incomplete. Yet the tempo keeps rising, becoming more chaotic. His life feels like a car speeding down a highway. A father in such a state can lose control, causing disasters that cannot be undone. Sometimes one must slow down—and listen to the heart.
Slowing down does not mean losing efficiency; it is a sense of rhythm—a way of balancing everything in your world. A bit of slowness can help you align with the rhythm of life itself and savor its real taste. Yakup only feels this rhythm when he goes to feed the birds. Because the human being is something more, much more, than the story he tells himself.
For a child, any separation becomes an immense life experience, leaving a memory that does not fade. The time they share opens unexplored horizons. A child, even if devastated inside, may not show sorrow outwardly—may dive into play, may temporarily resolve problems in silence. Yet suddenly, a trembling phrase appears, revealing the tears of the soul:
“You are my sunshine.”
Those words say: You are as precious to me as sunlight. No matter how dark the sky may be, your presence brings joy. You brighten my life; you lighten my soul.
This simple, cheerful song—first recorded by American singer Jimmie Davis in 1940—has since lost its country roots in later covers and taken on an almost childlike gentleness. Despite its warm melody, the lyrics carry a deep melancholy: the ache of separation and heartbreak.
Through his performance, Nadir Sarıbacak reminds us that to feel the beauty of life, we must slow down. Time is not merely a sum of numbers and seconds; it is an invitation to appreciate the precious moments unfolding within it. And the director argues that despite fear and anxiety, despite the absurdity of our era, we must face the challenges of our time—seeking truth and beauty with determination.
Overall, the film offers a deeply moving testimony to the inner wounds of people exiled from their homelands, especially from Turkey, and separated from their families. Perhaps the film’s final message is this: What defines us as human beings—what binds us to one another and gives us reasons to live—is not only happiness and love. It is also the heart’s mysterious throbbing that lets us understand pain, loss, and the closeness of sorrow.
In the Q&A after the screening, the director emphasized that what matters is not reaching the destination but taking each step with awareness.
“The beauty is not in arriving—it is in the process itself,” he said.
For in daily life, speed is often unnecessary. Every step is beautiful. Smelling the scents of a foreign land, encountering unfamiliar plants, being caught in a gentle rain, feeling the sky change its colors. When you pause, even the breeze can awaken extraordinary feelings. One is drawn to the fallen leaves and flowers, to their colors and shapes.
And then—spring arrives.
Only for those patient enough to wait calmly, as if eternity stood before them.
