Ayla- The Daughter: Of War

You may not have heard of it. In the West, it was largely overshadowed by the bombast of Dunkirk . But in Turkey, and now across the globe via Netflix, this true story of a Turkish soldier and a Korean orphan during the Korean War has become a phenomenon—reducing hardened generals to tears and redefining what a "war hero" looks like. It is 1950. The Korean Peninsula is frozen and bloody. Süleyman Dilbirliği (played with aching tenderness by İsmail Hacıoğlu) is a young Turkish brigadier serving under the UN Command. During the brutal Battle of Kunu-ri, Turkish soldiers are tasked with holding the line against waves of Chinese forces.

The unit adopts her. They name her Ayla , after the glow of the moonlight (literally "halo" or "moonlight") that lit the battlefield when they found her. For the next several months, this frozen hellscape becomes a bizarre, beautiful nursery. The heart of the feature is the silent dialogue between the stoic soldier and the traumatized child. Ayla refuses to speak. She bites, screams, and hoards food. She is a wild thing broken by war. Ayla- The Daughter of War

In any other war film, this is the "trauma moment"—a quick cut to the soldier’s haunted eyes before he moves on. But Ayla stops the clock. You may not have heard of it

Süleyman does not try to fix her with psychology. He fixes her with socks. It is 1950

While clearing a destroyed village, Süleyman hears a whimper. Buried under the frozen corpses of a Korean family is a five-year-old girl, malnourished, mute with trauma, and clutching her dead mother’s hand.

When the war ends, the UN forces pull out. Süleyman is ordered to leave. Ayla is to be sent to a local orphanage. The film spends twenty agonizing minutes on their last night together—Süleyman teaching her to say "Goodbye" in Turkish, Ayla refusing to let go of his leg.