Luxbox
In Turkish Director Murat Fıratoğlu’s debut feature, “One of Those Days When Hemme Dies,” the audience is offered a glimpse into the world of a field worker who battles the oppressive realities of labor, poverty, and familial responsibilities in rural Turkey over the course of a single day. The film examines the balance between human dignity, the different kinds of people that make up our society, and the brutal socioeconomic forces that insert themselves into every aspect of the lives of the working class.
Director: Murat Fıratoğlu
Year: 2024
Country: Türkiye
Original Title: Hemme’nin Öldürüldüğü Günlerden Biri
Runtime: 83 minutes
The film opens with a scene of people dancing the Halay, a traditional Turkish dance where participants move in a row while holding onto one another. Through this evocative imagery, Director Murat Fıratoğlu immediately establishes the film’s tone, highlighting how, regardless of our individual connections, we all rely on each other to shape our society.
After this introduction, we’re transported to the red fields of tomatoes, where Hemme and his coworkers work under a relentless sun. The visuals are eye-catching, with the wide shots of open fields emphasizing both the workers’ physical exhaustion and the beauty of the colors. At first, it feels like we’re in the company of another exhausted worker, but there’s a shift. Hemme isn’t laboring; he’s the boss, and he’s tough. Hemme’s presence and foul treatment of his workers, especially a man named Eyüp, lingers just long enough to make us uneasy, but then the focus slides away from him, even though the impact of his actions shall last the entire runtime. It’s not his story we’re following; it belongs to Eyüp, one of the workers under Hemme’s thumb. The camera captures Eyup’s every move, focusing closely on the physical effort required to work these fields. Sweaty, strained faces tell the story of men, women, and children constantly at the edge of collapse, their movements punctuated by the rhythmic sound of crates being tossed back and forth. Young children, just as weary, are shown working beside the adults, underscoring the bleakness of their situation.
Eyüp, played by director Murat Fıratoğlu himself, is at the center of this story. The film’s title hints that he might kill Hemme, but as we become more focused on Eyüp’s daily life it becomes clear that any intention he might have is quickly buried under the bunch of his daily tasks and his meetings with various acquaintances in the city. The film captures Eyüp’s life in moments that are fleeting yet impactful. He doesn’t have the luxury of time, not for himself and certainly not for others, but in his hurried existence, there is always a surprising amount of care and humanity that Fıratoğlu focuses on. Eyüp stops to help his uncle carry a watermelon, even if it’s just for a moment. He briefly talks to a friend and shares a glance, a word. These interactions aren’t grand or overly sentimental but quiet acts that add up to something significant in their simplicity.
Eyüp’s life is a constant collision of burdens. His motorcycle, a broken-down relic from ’86, needs a new spark igniter. He’s suffocated by debt, and the bank is running out of patience. They threaten him with prison time if he doesn’t pay up, but how can he when he hasn’t been paid for fifteen days? The tension doesn’t come from loud confrontations but from these everyday suffocations. There’s a moment when Eyüp is told that others have noticed that Hemme cursed his mother and slapped him. It’s another insult to his honor on top of everything else.
Fıratoğlu’s direction finds poetry in the dirt and labor, in the unspoken exchanges between people who know they are all struggling. The camera is patient, letting scenes breathe, capturing not only the harshness of this situation but also the rare glimpses of tenderness that emerge. Eyüp’s world is heavy, but it’s in his small acts of decency that the film finds its soul.
“One of Those Days When Hemme Dies” is a film that shines through the quiet intensity of everyday struggles of the working class, constantly building tension. Through its pacing and focus on Eyüp’s interactions and hardships, Murat Fıratoğlu offers a raw look at the pressures faced by those at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. Rather than centering on confrontations or dramatic turns, the film allows the weight of Eyüp’s labor, the constant grind against debt and authority to speak, and especially his fleeting moments of compassion to speak for themselves and create a humanist portrait of a man and the people around him.
“One of Those Days When Hemme Dies” premiered at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize in the Orizzonti section.
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