The Visits

To deeply remember how my childhood went: those who are likely to break are women. In many facets of media, women are brought to be the fragile species -the ones who need special pauses. Women are figures objectified because it’s easy. Women are the basis of modesty but mostly humiliation. Women are to be under command and control. Women’s menstrual blood is a sign of shortcoming and deficiency. Bulak Alaot tries to reflect the struggles of women that they have to go through on a daily basis, “as women.” The extra measures women take for protection and preservation are implicitly embedded beneath the surface meaning.
The purpose of this film is to open an eye slightly above the ones we conventionally use. Horror movies are a peculiar platform to revolt against the norm. This genre mystifies the familiar but at the same time demystifies it. Sittie’s character, as the one being granted with the misfortune, represents every other woman in the world, regardless of culture, class and age, who feels the same vulnerability as what Sittie feels. But as the film escalates, Sittie shrinks. And shrinking compliments fear, and fear does nothing more than to cradle you as its own.
Though I sound enthusiastic about the genre, I do not quite have the best experience with horror films myself. I am extremely terrified. Yet while doing the film, the fear became the fuel in fabricating phobia into a perceptible reality. But the purpose was not to accumulate fear, it is to use this stage to perform relevant calling. I want to show that even the small details tell the biggest stories -framing, the actors’ spirit, up until the instrument used in sound design. Individually, they tell important messages that contribute to the entire vision of the film. This genre requires meticulous but imaginative senses. Hearing Sittie cry is smelling the blood that flows out of her.
The essence I want to project is the hollowness and insecurity that women feel when having menstrual blood sprawling on their underwear, or simply when walking down the streets. But how do I show my intent? Colours of blue are not only colours meant to draw the eyes but as well as to initiate the hunger to sympathise with the character. When the Mëranaw women wash their sanitary pads, I wonder about the consequences if they do not. I wanted these consequences to form images that somehow reflect to our realities.
I believe that often times, people overlook that Aristotle’s, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” will also have to reconsider repeatedly the optimum contribution of the parts to function a better role in the whole. This means that, horror films are not just a set of “creepy” elements made of creepy sound and creepy lighting, but a carefully sculpted orchestra that will demand to be heard.