Georg Simmel’s Concept of the Stranger and Effects on Ahlat Ağacı’s Main Character

Georg Simmel treats the individual as socialized in urban life. He points out to the side of society that prioritizes the interrelationships between people and argues that human beings are too intertwined in the process that there is no external existence. Simmel separates and conceptualizes people into specific, social types and “stranger” is one of them. According to Simmel ‘stranger’ is very important social type in urban life. It is both close and distant and takes place within the group in a unique way of interaction. Nuri Bilge Ceylan's last movie called Ahlat Ağacı and the main character Sinan is very familiar the social type of “stranger” which described by Georg Simmel. There are areas in the social structure that Sinan is both inside and outside. Sinan was out of the picture, both close and far away, and he found it hard to give meaning to his own existence. In the social type of “stranger” concept of Simmel, the existence of the subject and its identity are based on ambiguity. The aim of the article is to try to explain the character of Sinan with the social type of Simmel’s ‘stranger’ and to try to explain how familiar and foreign the character with this concept in society.

Keywords

Cinema, Georg Simmel, Foreign, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ahlat Ağacı