Revenge on Screen Valley of the Wolves Iraq *

Belated revenge for the humiliation of the Iraq War? Poster for Valley of the Wolves Iraq (Kurtlar Vadisi Irak)

Even the German film posters say Kurtlar Vadisi Irak; the German title, Tal der W?lfe, tends to be nearly impossible to find. In short, the film is about an incident that took place inNorthern Iraq in July 2003. An American unit apprehended eleven Turkish soldiers, put bags over their heads like terror suspects and detained them.

The eleven soldiers were released again shortly afterwards. And no accusations of torture were made. But at the time the television images left deep scars, or so the Turkish-German writer Feridun Zaimoglu believes:

"In a certain sense, the Turks want to watch this film to experience some on-screen revenge for the humiliation which they feel, which all of them feel as Muslims, whether they are real believers or not – for the humiliation in Iraq."

Affronted by the Behavior of the USA

Traditionally, relations between the USA and Turkey have been good; there is less anti-American sentiment in Turkey than in other states in the Islamic world. However, many Turks felt affronted by the way their NATO ally, the USA, treated the Turkish soldiers: in their eyes, the soldiers were equated with terrorists.

In the film, the context for the incident is the Americans' claim to absolute power in the region. Unable to cope with the stain on the honor of his troop, Lieutenant Süleyman Aslan commits suicide.

Before his death, however, he tells secret agent Polat Alemdar about the incident. Alemdar takes a team to Northern Iraq to find the American commander who was to blame and shed some light on the matter.

Of course, that is not quite enough for a movie plot. The film also shows American soldiers marching through Iraq on a murder spree, abusing innocent people and blowing up the minaret of a mosque. In the film, the USA is also involved in trading organs from Iraqi prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, with a Jewish doctor pulling the strings.

America's Lost Credibility

However, the film also uses shockingly graphic images to condemn suicide bombings and hostage taking. According to Feridun Zaimoglu, most Turks see the film less as an action picture than as a way of coping with the incident in Northern Iraq, which most regarded as profoundly offensive.

"For the overwhelming majority of Turks, the America they believed in, the America they knew and loved, lost its credibility in Iraq," says Zaimoglu.

In Turkey the film premiered in over 500 movie theaters around the country – on the first day alone it was viewed by over 370,000 people. Turkish politicians even referred to the film as a "historic event". The speaker of the Ankara Parliament, Bülent Arinc, called the film "splendid", and the wife of Turkey's Prime Minister, Emine Erdogan, publicly congratulated the filmmakers.

* This article was originally published on www.qantara.deand has been republished with permission and without editorial changes.