Director Tarkan Özel’s debut feature, Mahpeyker, is an ambitious biopic of Kösem Sultan, the woman who left her mark on the Ottoman Empire for half-a-century and was a true force of nature in the first half of the 17th century.
Sadly, by the time Selda Alkor, the actress playing Kösem Sultan, utters in her regal voice the strongwoman’s immortal words, “I have chosen to let my poison out into the palace, and give my milk to my people,” you have already lost interest in the story.
Mahpeyker means “moon-shaped” – it was the name given to her at age 15 when she was captured and brought to Istanbul, to the harem of Sultan Ahmed I. Four centuries ago, comparing someone’s face to the full moon was not an implication that one was calling her chubby but a compliment emphasizing her beauty. The more popular, well-known name Kösem was given to her later by Ahmed.
As the older Kösem Sultan reminisces about her first days in the palace, how she was manipulated and shoved around by the older women in power, the story alternates to the later years of her reign and power.
Sultan Ahmed falls for the young concubine Mahpeyker, leading him to marry this moon-faced beauty. For reasons unclear in the movie, Sultan’s mother and grandmother do not think of Mahpeyker as a suitable candidate for Ahmed’s consort. They send her off for an education that never seems to end. And when Ahmed later finds out about the schemes of his mother and grandmother to distance his favorite concubine from him, he takes charge and reunites with Mahpeyker, leading toward her transformation into Kösem. The story of Ahmed and Kösem eventually goes down in history as one of the greatest imperial love stories of the Ottoman palace.
From concubine to queen mother
When Ahmed dies at 28, Kösem’s education pays off, helping her to become an influential and undefeatable force in the palace. She pulls the strings in the Ottoman reign, first through her sons Murad IV and İbrahim (the Mad) I, and later through her grandson Mehmed IV, all who reigned as Ottoman sultans. She becomes the much-feared Valide Sultan (queen mother) for nearly three decades.
Women had enormous power in the imperial palace during the Ottoman Empire. But it was Kösem Sultan who formally became the first regent. It is fair to say that she practically ran the empire during the reign of Murad IV, continuing to attend the divan (Cabinet) meetings behind a curtain long after her position as a regent was over. Later, İbrahim’s mental instability – hence the title “Mad” – helped Kösem Sultan to cement her strong role in the palace. Her second formal regency came after Ibrahim, when her seven-year-old grandson Mehmed IV became the Sultan. This lasted for just three years; Kösem Sultan’s end came yet from another powerful woman in the palace, Mehmed’s mother, Turhan Hatice.
In the film, Kösem Sultan is played by two actresses. Damla Özcan plays her in her younger years when she was just a novice concubine in the harem while the ever-regal Alkor plays her in her older years. Özcan’s portrayal of a young and confused Mahpeyker is in stark contrast to the power-crazy Kösem of decades later.
Film fails to provide a fresh take
While showing a young and vulnerable Kösem is a fresh take on a figure remembered in history and pop culture only through her hard-shelled persona of later years, it still fails to show how such a fresh-faced girl transformed into such a grand regal presence.
There are also some crucial details overlooked or misrepresented in the movie. It is never mentioned, for instance, that Kösem was of Greek origin and that she was the daughter of a priest. And her death becomes a true product of fiction, distorting the official historical records.
Mahpeyker hopes to give a multi-dimensional, never-before-seen portrayal of a figure often misrepresented. But sadly, it turns into a film showing a naïve young girl turning into a monster of a woman fond of power games.
Not many people know that Kösem Sultan was also renowned for her close involvement in charity work, that she freed her slaves after three years of service and that when she died she was mourned for three days in Istanbul.
There is hardly any hint of that persona in the movie and it just goes further to reinforce the devious queen mother image.
Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News on 22 October 2010
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