Relationship between journey, self and identity in Yeşim Ustaoğlu cinema

The contribution of the family in self-development beginning in childhood is a crucial starting point. Individuals take their first step in their self-development by interacting within various groups through behaviours which they observe in their parents. The reason why the notion of self is emphasized in psychological studies is that the individual has a healthy notion of self from childhood is a reference point for social development. In traditional and modern societies, individuals construct their own selves by interacting with society and other individuals. The unhealthy self-development, on the other hand, results in an alienation between individuals and society. The notion of identity, with which the self deals from a sociological standpoint, is an identity construction by which the self constructs itself in relation with society. In this sense, individuals have many identities such as collective, ethnic, cultural, sexual, individual, and the like. Identity construction is always in the process of construction due to its interactive and constant nature. In this process, identities journey between their own selves and their constructed identities. That the cinema develops its own viewpoint in the creation of meaning as a language is presented in Yeşim Ustaoğlu's cinematography which deals with the journey of the self and the identity. Ustaoğlu discusses the relationship between the self, identity and journey as a common theme, and through it, aims for individuals to question their own identities, to begin their own journey to find them. In this sense, the conceptual framework of the study is the notions of self, identity and alienation that emerges with the modernisation. Focusing generally on Turkish Cinema, and specifically on Yeşim Ustaoğlu's cinematography, this study aims to analyse Ustaoğlu's Pandora'nın Kutusu (Pandora's Box), Araf (Somewhere in Between) and Tereddüt (Clair-Obscur) in terms of journey, self and identity relations through content analysis method, and to provide a new perspective for Yeşim Ustaoğlu's cinematography. Keywords: Self, Identity, Journey, Alienation, Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Cinematography