Untamed Youth

MUSTANG (A-minus) - This debut feature zings with youthful energy as it burrows into the coming-of-age stories of five teenage sisters in a remote Turkish village who are placed on lockdown in their home to keep them pure until they can be married off.

Director Deniz Gamze Erguven zeroes in on the youngest of the sisters, Lale, as the eyes and ears of the film, and young actress Gunes Sensoy carries it all on her narrow shoulders. Lale watches her older sisters fall victim to the brutal familial regime of the girls' grandmother and uncle, who struggle to raise them after the death of the girls' parents.

Erguven, a 37-year-old Turk raised in France, penned the script with a filmmaker she met at a Cannes workshop, Alice Winocour ("Augustine"). The two women create a world that is both harrowing and thrilling. It closely echoes both the trajectory and the feel of Sofia Coppola's 1999 debut, "The Virgin Suicides."

Pay attention to the first two scenes. In the first, the girls say goodbye to their teacher, Dilek (Bahar Kerimaglu), who is moving to the big city, Istanbul. After that, the girls are off for a romp on the beach, frolicking with boys from the village. The scene burns with childhood exuberance.

But when word reaches their grandmother that the girls acted so scandalously, she calls in their uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) to lay down the law in order to preserve the chastity of the girls so that they can someday be betrothed to a man. Thus begins the house arrest that gradually grows more and more prison-like with every transgression.

The sisters take refuge in the deep bonds of their sorority, and Erguven basks in that electrifying interplay. The sisters loll around playfully, naturally, tenderly. They tease and taunt and dare each other. They protect each other from the harshly patriarchal world. They sneak out for a romp at a soccer match, despite Erol's proclamation that women belong in the kitchen, not a stadium.

Soon the oldest daughter gets married off, and then the next. The next one with a target on her forehead is the brooding, provocative middle child, Ece (Elit Iscan). Soon, a dark secret is casually revealed about Uncle Erol. The need for the girls to band together grows more dire.

Lale takes charge. She uses the resources of a local truck driver, Yasin (Burak Yigit), who teaches her to drive and becomes a trusted companion. The film builds to a showdown between the girls and their captors, toward a heart-breaking final scene.

Erguven finds just the right tone, mixing humor and stinging personal drama to bring the girls' struggle to life. The oppressive old-world treatment of women gets a lovely, nuanced fleshing out. And little Sensoy as Lale is a classic underdog that you can't help rooting for. This is a sophisticated polemic wrapped seductively in a well-worn cinematic structure. It feels fresh and urgent.