All is Fate
Script by Michael Kokkinaris
Full Treatment
During the
First World War, the Gallipoli peninsula was the battlefield where not only
Turkish and English soldiers fell, but also many colonial military corps,
mainly from New Zealand and India…
In the story
narrated in the scenario, the confrontation on the battlefield on this narrow strip
of land, where New Zealand troops landed in front of the KAMBA TEPE hills of
the Gallipoli peninsula, between two men, the
Turk Imit Iffetli and the New Zealand Major Michael Mason will be a matter of fate.
Coming from
the mountain village of Albayrak in the region of Van in Turkey, Imit Iffetli,
a twenty-year-old, accomplished horseman and marksman of forthright character,
with the certainty that the soul of man
is his honor, will come to know the ferocity of war when still as a new
recruit he is forced to watch the hanging of a deserter.
In the spring of 1915, Imit Iffetli is transferred to
the 19th Division led by Colonel
Kemal Ataturk to Gallipoli, where a strong attack is expected by the Allied
Forces of the Entente, with the intent of occupying Constantinople by land
after the failure of the Allied fleet to pass the straits of the Bosphorus.
Major Michael Mason is one of the New Zealand officers
who will participate in the landing of the Allied troops in Gallipoli in order
to implement Winston Churchill’s
disastrous scheme for this operation which was to cost the lives of thousands
of young men.
3.EXT.TURKEY.GALLIPOLI PENINSULA.KAMΒA TEPE.SUNRISE.
As dawn begins to break, the grey shadows of battleships are outlined on
the horizon approaching the coast.
Camera on a
battleship.
On deck, soldiers in full kit are in rank formation
ready to go to shore.
The captain and the officers on the bridge are
observing the coast through binoculars.
CAPTAIN
(scanning
the shore with binoculars)
As soon as the first bullet is fired, I'll find you
and crush you...
On the ship, whistles are heard and using rope
ladders, the soldiers get into dinghies which are lowered on a cableway into
the sea.
On the shore, in the Turkish outposts hidden in the
rocks, tension prevails as the battleships approach.
The artillerymen on board check and double check the
firing range of the cannons while the first dinghies full of soldiers begin to
reach the coast.
Close up on the face of an officer on one of the
dinghies, his eyes fixed impassively on the coast. The officer is about thirty
five, with rugged facial features. On his epaulettes can be distinguished the rank
of major.
And as the dinghy is approaching the shore, the camera
focuses on his left hand in which he is holding a pendant. With his thumb, the
officer discreetly opens the locket and reveals (close up) the face of a
beautiful woman.
Flash back.
The major is tenderly holding in both hands the face
of the woman in the photograph and is beseeching her.
MICHAEL
Dorothy, look at me one last time... tell me
truthfully.
Do you want me to completely disappear from your life?
DOROTHY
Does it really matter what I want?
MICHAEL
That's not an answer!
DOROTHY
What answer can I give?
That I'm in love with you?
What's the point?
The officer closes the locket, puts on his kepi, leans
on the gunwale of the dinghy and through his binoculars attempts to locate the
positions of the gunmen on the coast.
The first dinghy that reaches the shore is fired upon
by gunmen and many soldiers, either killed or wounded, fall into the sea.
While the soldiers are disembarking onto the shore,
shots from the ships' cannons blow up many Turkish outposts.
From the bridge of one of the battleships, the
captain, while continuing to monitor the situation on the coast through
binoculars, orders
CAPTAIN
Cease fire!
God help them!
At the same
time, the dinghy with the major's men lands on shore and the major, standing
upright, without showing the slightest fear of all the bullets whizzing by him,
gives orders to reorganise on the ground and the machineguns that are set up on
the shore force the Turks to withdraw into the surrounding highlands.
On a personal
level, Mason is weighed down by his unfulfilled relationship with Dorothy Donahue, the wife of the
retired and crippled Colonel Andrew
Donahue, and with whom he has decided to separate solely out of respect for
her invalid husband.
In April of
1915, however, when Mason steps onto Turkish soil, what predominates in his
mind is his sense of duty in a confrontation of war, which, as it had been
planned, would inevitably lead to the slaughter of his men.
In spite of
their casualties, the Turkish forces attacked the New Zealand lines and
gradually decimated them since there was no alternative plan in place to enable
them to escape the slaughter of Gallipoli.
…this time,
the Turkish cavalry reaches right up to the New Zealand trenches and engage in hand-to-hand
fighting with them. When the order to
abandon the trenches is heard, the flag-bearer of the New Zealand battalion
raises the flag and enters the battlefield.
It is now the
turn of the Turks to be decimated.
Major Michael
Mason oversees the evacuation of the wounded and the recovery of the dead
soldiers and through binoculars observes the movements of the Turkish forces on
the hills.
The sergeant approaches him saying:
SERGEANT
There are
twelve dead and forty wounded, Major.
MASON
There will be
more dead, sergeant… and it’s not up to me to stop the slaughter…
Flash back to
the map room of the British Naval Department where one can see the form of
Winston Churchill casting a shadow over the map of the Gallipoli peninsula.
VOICE OVER
SERGEANT
Your orders,
Major?
MASON
To hold our
positions at all costs, according to Staff command.
Until Major
Michael Mason’s fateful day arrives…
From the hill,
Mustafa Kemal watches impassively while the cavalry is annihilated. Kemal issues the order for the third wave of
the attack. As the horsemen are
approaching, through his binoculars he notices one of them from the second wave
who is making for the New Zealand flag.
The horseman returns his sword to its sheath and with a pistol shoots
the flag-bearer. The New Zealand
flag-bearer falls and the flag is taken up by Major Mason. The horseman now moves towards him with his
sword. As the major is shooting his
pistol, he is hit in the arms and body by some of the thousands of bullets
falling all around him yet he continues to hold up the flag. The camera now shows the face of the
horseman. It is Imit Iffetli, who is
reaching the New Zealand major.
In slow
motion, Imit raises his sword, readying himself to sink it into the major’s
body. The major, with broken arms, is
trying to raise the flag.
Kemal observes
the two men through his binoculars.
While the
sword of the Turk is raised, the major remains motionless, searching to meet
the Turk’s gaze in order to show him that he is not afraid of death.
And then, Imit
grabs the flag in his left hand without finishing off the major, who is by now
too weak to uphold his honor.
Imit is now
galloping alongside the New Zealand trenches holding their flag upside down while
the bullets are whistling past him. The
third charge of the Turks is to prove fatal for the New Zealanders. In slow motion, the Turkish cavalry first,
followed by ground troops, knock down the New Zealanders, who are overcome one
by one. Heavily wounded, Mason is
transported to a hospital ship off the coast of Gallipoli and he will
ultimately survive to recover in Egypt where he is evacuated for further
medical care. As for Iffetli, his
inexplicable gesture of sparing the life of the New Zealand major will come to
the attention of the divisional commander Kemal Ataturk, who will in the end
acknowledge his conviction that the soul of man is his honor.
Afterwards,
Imit Iffetli, with the rank of sergeant, will take part in the battle of Suvla,
where once again, the incomprehensible off-handedness of the English Staff
officers will lead to the renewed slaughter of the Allied Forces.
At Suvla he
will save the life of the German Chief of Staff, Major Herbert Neumann, who
eventually choses to follow him to the Eastern Front at the border between
Turkey and Russia, where there are violent transfers of Armenian populations.
Iffetli’s
stopover in Constantinople will prove to be a determining factor in his life.
It is there
that he will come to realize that the German major is in fact a violent,
degenerate and ruthless war criminal in the service of Talaat Pasha of the
Sultan’s Ministry of the Interior, responsible for the brutalities against the
Armenian people.
So, when
Neumann offers him as a gift a night at a well-known house of ill-repute in
Constantinople, he will hear straight from the mouth of a small
fourteen-year-old prostitute more than his pride can bear.
13.INT.IN KERHANE (BROTHEL).EVENING.
It's dark.
Nouman and Ifetli arrive in front off a large building,in a kerhane(brothel).
Kerhane is a single story building, near Buyuk Tarci, which occupies an entire
block.
When placed in
kerchane Noumea and Chavez Ifetli,greets
them a middle-aged kachpe (prostitute),half naked and repulsive painted.
From her behavior in Nouman Imit understands that she knows him. Shortly after
appearing two topless prostitutes who lost in the arms of happy Neuman.
Before the
curtain pass,which separates the brothel as a theater,the German says to
middle-aged kachpe.
NOYMAN
Aishe ... Cavuz and your eyes ...
Kachpe,catches IMIT from his hand,caressing his cheek
and says slyly. KAHPE Stay calm... and I understand what you want! Back from
the curtain is a large hallway with many rooms.At the edge of the corridor, the
room where the latch is from outside,stops kahpe,unbar and tells Imit. KAHPE
(CONT'D) As the dawn lovebirds is yours
... You, what do you define! And if
happens something ... Do not worry. The German effendi
repays us and with more! But interlocks when you enter and when ... you go out
... Imit opens the door and goes in a
small room.
The room barely lit by a large candle that burns up in
a closet.
In a corner of the room is a bed and in the other
corner sits on her knees a naked girl,trying to hide her nakedness with the
attitude of her body. Imit who are not yet accustomed to the dim light,turns to
remove his greatcoat when hears a muffled cry like sob. Puzzled latched the
door and moved to the girl that rises and begins to tell pleadingly. GIRL (crying) Please Effendi, do not hurt
me please ... Imit thinking that it's
the uniform,unstuck almost over him and throws it away out of bed. Now IMIT wearing only undergarment,makes a
step forward. The naked girl comes up to him and Imit spreads his hands to the touch her,
while from her eyes run tears. But Imit's hands remains meteors, as in the dim
light of the candle on girl's body strongly erased marks from a whip.
Imit,like not wanting to see,turns his back and then
the girl comes forward and falls on his knees.
Through the sobs she murmurs. GIRL (CONT'D) Take me ... please! Make your
fun! If it happens and opens the door,I'm lost
Imitlooks around with a style full of pity for the girl. In Flach back
see Imit playing sex with a chubby shepherdess, who has cornered him with her breasts in a tree and she don't
leave him. Imit says laughing. IMIT I'll call ... SHEPHERDESS Soon ... IMIT
Seftichie ,if understand something
the shepherd(tsompan-basi),he willspit you! SEFTICHIE
Imit, darling,tsompan-basi is isunable... And as she says the last word,
throwing him in the grass, strips him and drops over him, while hanging big
breasts ...
Now Imit getting up the girl, hugs,like he do'nt want
to hurt touching her wounds ,kissing her on shoulder and telling. IMIT From where are you? GIRL From nowhere,
Efendi! IMIT (patiently) And where is this nowhere? GIRL (with sob)
It was a small town near Erzurum. IMIT How can I call you? GIRL Call me ntitsi-kiopek (bitch), Efendi! Imit catch her from the shoulders and forces
her to look him in his eyes.Then he says imperative. IMIT Your name I want ... Tell
me! GIRL
Dylan, Effendi, who it's means armenian prostitute
... IMIT And who brought you in
kerhane, Dylan? In flach back we see men
in uniforms identical to that wears IMIT, horseback, beating with whips women
and children,beginning to come out of a village. Among women camera singles
Dylan. A man, dressed in civil, shows Dylan, and armed citizens grab her and
stow in an oxcart with other girls crying.
Dylan, standing
as it is, in a corner of her eye sees
the Imit's revolver hanging next to the closet.
Short rushes to the closet, pulls the gun from the
tray and gives it surprised Imit, telling him hard. DYLAN Kill me please... don't you see how I become?
Imit takes the gun, throw it on the bed and embraced
with affection Dylan.
Now camera follows his lips to kiss Dylan's wounds who
receives with alleviate the human touch.
In a moment Dylan seek his lips and guards Imit with
passion, while he feels the passion
returns the plan closes with Imit be in the Dylan.)
Following the
German officer from Constantinople, Iffetli will find himself in Bogaz in
Armenia, on the Eastern Front, as the Russian troops are retreating and violent
efforts are made to move the Armenian population. Here, he will witness Herbert Neumann’s
attempt to satiate his desires on a beautiful Armenian woman who is being led
together with a huge crowd of uprooted people to her certain death. On horseback he approaches the woman and is
about to reach out for her when an old woman, in reality her husband in
disguise, puts a stiletto to his throat, ready to slaughter him.
Reliving Dylan’s
description of the horrors of her experience in the whore-house, Iffetli, being
a skilled marksman, kills first the Armenian man and then the woman to save her
from all that would have ensued.
Neumann will
take revenge on Iffetli for his unacceptable conduct of killing the Armenian
woman as well, sending him once again to the scene of the battle.
In this way,
Iffetli will find himself in Syria, where Colonel
Kemal Ataturk is now the Turkish commander.
Meanwhile in
Oakland, Andrew Donahue passes away and Dorothy is at last free to seek the
embrace of Major Mason.
However,
because all depends on fate, the ship that is carrying the correspondence from
Oakland, including Dorothy’s letter, comes up against bad weather and the box
of letters is crushed by other parcels and will remain hidden in the hold of
the ship for almost three years.
So, when Mason
recovers from his wounds in Egypt, he refuses to return to Oakland and insists
on being posted on the front… perhaps to find release from his nightmares, which
take the form of the Turkish horseman who spares his life… and in doing so,
takes his honor, but also from his unfulfilled love.
So, the now Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Mason is
transferred to the headquarters of the British Forces under Colonel Allenby, who in his haste to
occupy Damascus, blames the French for being too slow in their advance from the
coast of Palestine towards the mainland of Syria facing the resistance of the
Turks.
At the same
time, a complex network of espionage has been developed by both sides, keeping
each other’s movements under surveillance so as to be able to predict their
next move.
So, when
Colonel Allenby entrusts Lieutenant-Colonel Mason with the mission of assessing
the situation on the Turkish-French front in Palestine, the German spies were
already in the know, while at the same time the English were collecting
information in Aleppo concerning the Turkish-German front in Palestine and
Syria in the cabarets and red-light districts of the city.
In Aleppo,
then, a meeting will occur between two old acquaintances, the now Brigadier
Herbert Neumann, who has assumed the command of an important segment of the 7th
Armored Division and Captain Imit Iffetli, who is accompanying the Turkish Chief
of Staff of the Turkish regiment, Yildirim under Colonel Kemal.
The evening
before the two men’s departure for the front, Neumann celebrates his promotion
in a whore-house and Iffetli will become the target of a spy who is operating under
cover as a street prostitute in order to extract information about the Turkish
regiment in Palestine.
After a long
night that turns out to be full of surprises for Iffetli, he returns to Nablus,
the headquarters of the Yildirim regiment and takes on the arrest of the
surveillance detachment of the English that is to cross the Syrian desert,
according to the information from the German espionage network, with a view to entering
Palestine.
In accordance
with their orders, Mason and his men must reach the fortified German lines in
A’rara, a region under Neumann’s command.
Working out
the probable routes that will be taken by the English in order to reach A’rara,
Iffetli intuitively sets his ambush in Mash-Had and, indeed, forces the men of
the English detachment to surrender.
When Iffetli
recognizes among them the major whose life he had spared in Gallipoli, their
conversation reveals the strength of their character and their profound faith
in the honor and dignity of man.
As a result,
despite his orders, the Turk does not execute the prisoners and chooses to
surrender them to the regiment in Nablus.
However, just
outside the village Ya’bad, a German patrol forces the Turkish sergeant to give
the English prisoners over in A’rara, where Neumann is in command.
The diabolical
Neumann, who is completely indifferent to the fates of the men under his
command, sends waves of the Turkish cavalry against the French positions to become
their cannon fodder and begins to execute the English prisoners one by one
simply to prove to the stunned Iffetli that his convictions concerning honor
are absolute hogwash, but just before executing Mason, he is killed by French
artillery fire.
In this way,
Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Mason will remain in a concentration camp as a
prisoner of war in Nablus until the collapse of the Eastern Front and the
victory of the Allies.
After the
signing of the treaty, Imit does not return to Van from Nablus but decides to
go to Constantinople in search of the young Armenian prostitute he had met that
night in the red-light district, whose memory has remained with him throughout
the brutalities of the war.
The only thing
he finds, though, is the scorched remains of a whole building block and an old
woman living in the ashes of the house of ill-repute.
The old woman
asks him for something to eat and Iffetli gives her an apple.
In the light
of the gas street-lamp, Iffetli notices in the hand of the old woman the
stiletto (tsaka) with the silver handle that he had lost that night in the
whore-house… and he will then discover hidden within the ashes the little
Armenian prostitute.
Dylan had used
Iffetli’s knife to slaughter her last client and had then set fire to the
whore-house… only to continue living in its ashes.
38. ON THE ROAD
TO THE WHORE-HOUSE. EVENING.
In a flash, Imit grabs the old woman by the right
wrist so forcefully that her hand opens to relinquish the knife and the apple
rolls down into the street.
Then, Imit makes the old woman meet his eye and says:
IMIT
Auntie, where did you find that knife?
In the light of the gas-lamp, reflecting in Imit’s
eyes as if he has seen a ghost, pulls her hand away and then reaches out as if
to touch Imit.
Imit keeps still and, accepting her touch, asks her
again in a gentler voice:
IMIT
Ma’am… I’m asking you again… where did you find that
knife?
OLD WOMAN
Was it yours, Efendi?
IMIT
Who are you, ma’am?
OLD WOMAN
Take me away from here and I’ll tell you everything in
good time… Efendi Imit!
39. INT. IN IMIT’S ROOM. MIDNIGHT.
In a large deep copper wash-basin full of hot water,
the ‘old woman’, having previously used the stiletto to cut away the clothes
she is wearing from top to bottom, dips into the water stark naked in front of
Imit’s disbelieving eyes.
Then, as she pours hot water over her head from a copper
jug that is on a cabinet nearby, the ‘old woman’ begins to tell him who she
really is, all the time continuing to pour the water over her:
WOMAN
It’s been two years since the whore-house was burned
down…
40. INT. IN IMIT’S ROOM. DAWN.
When Dylan rises from the copper basin, the stunned
Imit stares at her in disbelief.
The old bag is transformed into a beautiful woman and
the only traces that are reminiscent of her ordeal are the scars on her body
from the lashings.
Naked as she is, Dylan takes the silver knife, gives
it to Imit and almost clinging to him says:
DYLAN
Imit, Efendi, the knife is yours and so is my life…
And it’s not at all strange… I knew that you would return some time to take me
away…
With trembling hands, Imit touches her face, the marks
on her body and kisses her on the lips.
She returns his caresses touching the scars on Imit’s
body. And the two bodies unite to
surrender themselves to an incredible passion erasing the pain that has marked
them.
In the next scene, two riders are galloping wildly
through the forest.
A golden eagle watches them galloping and a close up
reveals Imit and Dylan racing each other through the chestnut forest.
41. EXT. PORT SAID.
MORNING.
The port is crowded with people.
Hundreds of people, mostly soldiers from colonial
regiments, officers and civilians are waiting to board the ship ‘Liberty’ which
is docked at a huge pier.
Among them, Colonel Michael Mason, with visible scars
on his face from the wounds of battle, is patiently waiting his turn, when a
covered vehicle of the Royal Post Office stops and a soldier begins to search
the crowd, calling out repeatedly:
SOLDIER
Colonel Michael Mason from Oakland, New Zealand…
On hearing him, the colonel gestures him to approach.
The soldier greets him and says:
SOLDIER
Please excuse me, on behalf of my Service… but we have
received your correspondence almost three years later…
Flash back to the ship carrying the correspondence
encountering stormy weather and the letter box from Oakland being crushed under
other crates.
Stretching out his hand, Mason takes the yellowing
letter and as the soldier takes his leave, the colonel steps out of the line as
if hit by lightning.
And just before the final captions, in faraway
Oakland, New Zealand, Colonel Michael Mason is fervently embracing Dorothy, who
has opened the door to her house and cannot believe her eyes.
THE END
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου