MovieChat Forums > Susuz Yaz (1963) Discussion > Shocking animal cruelty

Shocking animal cruelty


Great film, but I really wish they hadn't included a couple of scenes. Particularly the graphic scene where a dog is shot and writhes in pain before dying. And then, there's the part where Osman cuts the head off a live chicken and tosses it at Bahar. These could have easily been toned down or excluded altogether. Yes, you can argue that the scenes serve to display Osman's personality, but I think they only did so in a very superficial way and weren't absolutely necessary to the storyline.

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I agree, the dog shooting scene was awful, and completely unecessary, to actually shoot a dog from that distance with a shotgun so it will not be killed instantly just to make a film is disgusting and IMO an evil viscious act of barbarism.

The chicken scene also bad, but atleast the chicken is dead almost instantly and it will be eaten. Killing a dog is a betrayal of trust.

The film itself without those scenes I'd say was good 7/10
with those scenes included I put it at 3/10

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I really don't think they killed a dog. Dogs can be trained to react very realistically - that's one reason they're so popular in movies.

The actual dead dog that was carried in the next scene doesn't appear to be the same dog: he's much thinner, has a huge gaping hole in his side, and appears to have his neck broken. It also looks like he's been dead for quite a while (his fur is starting to get "funky"). My take is that this was a dog that had been killed in traffic, and they used a live dog from a line-up of dog actors, choosing the one that looked most like their "victim".

As for the chicken, that IS a cultural thing. We see a lot of dead chickens in films, but usually they're running around one minute - break in the action, some sound effects - actor is holding a dead chicken and walking away. How do we know that isn't the same chicken? And do most people really care, or are they just squeamish?

In a lot of countries chickens are still killed at home, so the actual killing wouldn't be as upsetting for the audience. Osman's true character is shown in how he throws the butchered chicken at Hasan to scare her, like a 9-year-old might wave a dead rat at a girl he secretly likes.

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I agree. Though there was a puff of smoke from the gun, it was almost certainly firing a blank and there was no visible injury to the dog. Training dogs to roll over and 'play dead' on command is a fairly simple thing to do and the sound of the trainer giving the command would not have been included on the soundtrack.

I think Erksan did slip up in not showing us Osman with the dog before it was 'shot', e.g. it could have been shown trotting along with the donkeys at the beginning. When I saw it, I momentarily thought it was a villager shooting his own dog because times were getting hard due to the water shortage.

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I agree with this, I was very angry during the whole movie at that scene. Amazingly, not so much at the killing of the chicken, but very angry about the shooting of the dog. I did try to argue (against myself) that there was no other way to shoot this scene other than the way they did, since it was done a long time ago and there were no special effects.

"You young people are so old fashioned!"

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I tend to agree with you, from a personal standpoint. But I guess we should respect the fact the the film is nearly 50 years old and shot in Turkey, a foreign country. Again, I'm not condoning it, but I sense what was acceptable when it came to the treatment of animals was viewed far differently in those days.

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Yes, I'm with ctocci. As horrible as it may appear to us, it was a different culture with different standards, and even in Western countries, people weren't so bothered by animal cruelty in those years. After all, Jacques Cousteau had released Le monde du silence only a handful of years earlier. Probably, neither these filmmakers nor Cousteau deserve to be personally excused for their actions, simply because they lived in primitive times, but given such, I don't think it's fair to criticize their movies for the unethical practices of the people who made them. Artists are human, just like everyone else, and some of them do terrible things. It's the person's fault, not the movie's.

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[deleted]

I saw it on Hulu, and it was indeed touted as being Scorsese's remastered cut, so unless there were more close-ups or something in the original version, I think he maintained the director's vision. Here in the USA, videos aren't really subjected towards as much of the rating/censorship process as films for theatrical exhibition are, and unfortunately, sex and language are more heavily scrutinized than violence in the first place. You're right, though, that it may require further cuts for release in other regions.

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I watched the Criterion blu-ray last night and that scene was still in there. I have seen films before where they have shown the slaughtering of cows and farm animals but never a dog. It seemed like it went way over the edge.

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I've just watch the Masters of Cinema "Scorsese's World Cinema Project" release and the killing of the chicken and dog where included. Its pretty hypocritical that the BBFC would censor a movie like Cannibal Holocaust (which is more cinematically important than Dry Summer), but a movie promoted by Scorsese and released by Criterion Collection and MoS is released uncensored.

I personally don't care that either the dog or chicken were killed, however the killing of the dog served no purpose at all, we don't even see the dog before it gets shot (I don't think anyway). The killing of the chicken however is perfectly natural (they were gonna eat the thing so of course they'd kill it), and it revealed more of Osman's character.

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Turkey is terrible in terms of treatment of animals. Very unfortunate.

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Shocking forum thread, and so absolutely unnecessary. We do not tolerate such threads where I come from. Alas, the stupidity and squeamishness exhibited here is simply beyond belief. I hope that some day, someone will purge the Internet of threads like this; the cost of accidentally reading such horrific posts is not worth an ounce of "liberty" or "freedom".



~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~

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I too think this thread is rather ridiculous. Yes the scene of the dog getting shot was shocking and ugly, but that's just the point. Modern movie-goers consume violence and gore as easy as popcorn these days. How many of you sensitive dog-lovers have flocked to you tube to watch those ISIS beheading videos? As for chickens - just remember that 6 chickens were slaughtered for you to get your order of a dozen chicken wings. Shocking, isn't it ....

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Yes, indeed! Or those forests that were flattened to build your tofu factories, or the countless animals displaced by industry and humanity in your region, many of which starved or died in other cruel ways, or the countless animals in the air and oceans that are killed by the pollution you contributed to....

Such hypocrites complain about "cruelty" on a small scale but completely ignore it in the bigger picture. If any of them wanted to be taken seriously they ought to kill themselves immediately because every breath of air they take is stolen from other animals, every step they take crushes millions of microscopic life, and their way of life would be utterly impossible without the suffering and slaughter of millions of animals in the past and ongoing present.

But heaven forbid that one such slaughter is captured on celluloid and thereby challenges their rose-colored and delusional view of life. It's hard to keep that "out of sight, out of mind"!



~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~

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Man, you guys hate freedom, eh? I don't want you or anyone else saying how to create.

I'm sure you don't care when MILLIONS are dying right now from war - you watch idly.

But you are thinking exactly the way you were trained to think.

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