Social Role as a Murderer’s Disguise
Ümit Ünal’s Sofra Sırları (2018) and Justice
by Elifsu Gürtaş
The idiom “trust no one” authenticates the unreliability of people in society regardless of their relationship degree with the person. In this world, where people learned that their parent, whom they have known since birth, is an illegal criminal, one should not measure anyone’s credibility according to their social role. Sofra Sırları (or in English translation Serial Cook) is a Turkish movie where the audience closely follows the adventures of the main character Neslihan as she transforms from a housewife into a serial killer. The detective, who has currently arrived in the small town, tries to prove that Neslihan is the key suspect for her husband’s and his friends’ murders. However, the detective gets no return on his efforts due to the perfect disguise of Neslihan as a depreciated and almost invisible housewife in society. When the detective comes to Neslihan’s house to investigate the lost money that her husband has stolen before he dies, the two starts a conversation about justice.
The detective demonstrates that he has worked in many small places and has been to the USA to learn English and still has not promoted to a better position for years. His line “Look, I say this as a man of justice. There is no such thing as justice. Seriously” reveals the criticism on the disguise of misconducts thanks to the accepted social roles. As he criticizes the unfair assignment system in the government, he indicates that the judicial system is deprived of impartiality and openness. The movie suggests that the accepted social roles varying from president to the housewife prevent the justice implementation. When the detective brings Neslihan to the police station to reveal her real identity as a murderer, his chief asserts the idea that “She is just a poor housewife who has lost her husband and the case is closed for me.” The social role of a housewife becomes a great disguise tool for a murderer to escape from being arrested like authorized people’s using their high-ranked title to conceal their misconducts.
Presenting the common notion that a housewife who has devoted her life to her family poses no danger for the society, the movie examines that our instinctive judgement mechanism has been formed by notions imposed to us by the society in which we grow up, learn, and develop ourselves. The shaped mechanism affects, at times ironically as in the case of Neslihan, our ability to be objective against the injustice challenges. The way injustice is practised may change; however, it becomes more of an issue that humans are fair and impartial against the implementation of injustice. We can design a perfect legal system; however, we must not forget that independence and impartiality for the judiciary are of utmost importance in the justice system. (460)
