Original subtitles

ASPECTS OF TURKEY, PAST AND PRESENT

BOSPORUS

"Beyond this point, there is nothing,

"apart from the cold and the enemy,"

sighed the gentle, passionate poet, Ovid,

exiled by the wrath of Caesar to this sad shore.

The name "Euxeinos Pontos" died out with the ancient atlases,

but for Turks today,

like the Romans 2,000 years ago,

beyond these stormy seas there is still nothing.

Nothing but the enemy and the cold.

The Black Sea's north wind blows. The gulls go wild over the straits.

The fishermen return to the harbour and suddenly the seasons are reversed.

Poyraz and Lodos, the north wind and the south wind.

Their unpredictable alternation determines the colour of the sky

and the pleasure of living on these dunes

where every step awakens a memory.

A captain from Megara settled here twenty-six centuries ago,

in command of his sailors.

He was called Byzas,

and the outer limits of Europe were named after him.

Byzantium became Constantinople, then Istanbul,

never ceasing to be a caretaker for the straits under arms.

Entwined by the seawater river which gives it its diversity,

this threefold town is inseparable from the Bosporus.

It has carried three names in time,

and keeps three names in space:

Istanbul is Galata, and also Scutari.

Two continents border the water, each a reminder of something else.

There's almost nothing left to evoke the Greek empire

apart from the wild grasses, the ashes of the dead and the crumbling ramparts.

Beyond these walls lies Asia with its tawny, ochre Anatolia,

barely known and virtually unchanged.

A sound sometimes wafts through the ancient Ottoman capital,

the holy voice of Islam.

It is the voice of an almost familiar world, almost modern.

Soot and smoke mingle with sweet scents.

Oil flows into the calm waters.

Industry has erected chimneys

that pious children of the Republic call "Ataturk's minarets".

The fishing boats double up as barges.

A melancholy stroller would have shuddered to discover coal

on these shores that once so enchanted the Romantics.

But for a soul partial to harmony,

there are still Istanbul's 425 mosques, the preserved heritage of the Khalifa.

Time has stood still in this sanctuary,

dedicated to the memory of Mehmed II, el-Fatih,

who took the defences of this second Rome by force.

A spell casts torpor over this pure shelter,

shut off to the babble of one of the 11,000 fountains,

once donated to the community.

Only prayer punctuates the breeze,

that and the ablutions imposed on the faithful by ritual.

This timeless Turkey extends to here.

Writers of old called it Asia Minor in accounts of their travels.

Some doubtless live on, but the best of them have been returned to the soil,

in these cemeteries dedicated to every belief,

islands of peace, where white stones drown in the greenery,

surrendering to nature without those formal wire fences

which elsewhere insulate the dead from life's exuberance.

Images from another century present themselves here, too,

in this city which appears to be the capital of the unchanging.

The gestures of these men, constantly worrying their beads with their fingers,

are guided only by tradition

as they remember the agony of the Ottoman Empire.

The Turk is no longer the sick man of Europe.

He has conquered misfortune to find new meaning for the future

without abandoning his customs.

By turns Istanbul is a metropolis of dreams

or a castle in the mist,

its colours more or less refined or blurred.

The sky suddenly clouds over.

Mist and dust suddenly sweep along the quays of the Bosporus,

softening the domes, surrounding these ferry boats like ghost ships

in whose daily comings and goings

you can feel the heart of two continents beating.

Slate, and mud-coloured grey,

the whole town drifts off in them, disappearing in the murky waters.

But the wind changes everything,

and in a suddenly limpid light

residents of the occidental region of the city savour the pleasure

of being part of Europe, and also of the Orient.

A familiar Orient.

Even if the suburbs maintain a deceptive aura of nomadic encampment,

they remain open to a motley population of foreigners.

A tradition for commerce is the Republic's European calling.

Amidst the scent of watermelons and oranges, resin and dyes,

Levantine malice mingles with Anatolian crudeness in the markets,

the Mongolian heritage or Balkan ancestry of a robust and silent people

who are very lively, if not lovers of life,

frugally nourished, soberly watered by yoghurt and clear water,

lemonade and cherry cordial.

On the clearest days,

when the grey clouds part to reveal its golden reflections,

Istanbul is unique in the world

that fascinates those who might previously have been put off it.

In the sanctuary dedicated to him,

the shadow of Suleiman the Magnificent reigns over the conquered town.

The memory of the Genoans and Venetians clings to the slopes of Pera.

Imagination has worked its magic on lyrical foreigners

who have christened a still-water channel the "Golden Horn".

Carrying these conflicting currents,

calm seas and saltwater rivers,

the Bosporus is a charmer, intertwining seven ancient hills.

With what flash of pride did Justinian greet the completion of this building

dedicated to the saint of wisdom?

107 columns show off a fabulous dome 54 metres off the ground,

as a homage to the god of Byzantium and his image on earth, Basilus.

For fourteen centuries,

this sublime temple has defied earthquakes and the ravages of time.

Many buildings will not be lucky enough to survive

in a city where, up until the last century, stone was reserved for public edifices.

The rich built themselves wooden palaces,

the residences of the patricians of old families

whose quaint charm we admire.

Behind these yazllks, face to the wind,

a whole town suns itself under the domes.

It rises up with its gothic arches and ornamental bandstands

on the edge of this liquid avenue that Leander would cross each night

to embrace his beloved.

Istanbul always has the last word.

It triumphs as soon as we distance ourselves from it.

A town we thought neglected regains its elegance.

We dismiss the details to see it as a whole.

On departure, the sun restores a light to old Constantinople.

What once seemed disappointing becomes unforgettable.

Travellers cannot fail to fall in love when, in a dusk heavy with nostalgia,

they bid farewell to the fishing boats bobbing about on the eastern bank

in front of the little harbours of old.