All About My Mother (& Almodóvar)

 

My dad started taking me to the movies when I was four. At home, he let me watch whatever he watched on TV (typically cartoons, fantasy, science-fiction, or horror) without censoring things. I was fully immersed in all of it. 

My mom, in contrast, preferred romantic comedies. While I can’t relate to most romantic comedies even today, I am more open to this genre now, especially if it is also a musical. But back then, whenever mom made the movie choice, I became mentally checked out and wished we were watching a Tim Burton film instead. As a result, unlike my relationship with my dad, I hadn’t really connected with my mom while watching a movie or TV, until …

… we discovered Pedro Almodóvar.

 

It was late 2002. One day, a family friend, and one of my bonus mothers, took my mom to the movies, which is the only time mom went to the movies without me or my dad in my lifetime. After she came back, we asked her about the movie. To this day, I remember the level of excitement she had when describing to us that movie, which was Hable con Ella (Talk to Her). 

Shortly after this incident, one day I was perusing the TV guide on the newspaper (I feel old writing this) and realized Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) was on TV that evening. I asked my mom if she would be up to watching Todo Sobre Mi Madre given that it had the same director as Hable con Ella. She of course said yes. 

I don’t remember if my dad was also present that evening as we watched Todo Sobre Mi Madre. As far as I am concerned, I was watching the movie with my mom and was mesmerized. It was the first time my mom’s and my movie taste met. It was the first time I was seeing such a diverse depiction of women, and not only straight women, on screen. It was the first time a movie I was watching made me think of all the women who were prominently in my life. 

 

When I lived in the US, at some point, I had a crush on a Spanish guy. During one of our long talks, I brought up Almodóvar. He thought Almodóvar made movies about the people who are on the fringes of society and not about “regular” people, and therefore, Almodóvar’s movies didn’t represent him. This was disappointing to hear, and unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last time I hear such a comment about Almodóvar. 

Let’s give some examples of what is viewed as “fringe” here.

Women. 

Mothers.

Sex Workers. 

Transgender people.

Gay people. 

People with disabilities.

People who were sexually abused by a parental figure or church. 

People who express their emotions loudly. 

People who have AIDS.

People looking for the graves of loved ones who were killed at the hands of a dictator.

People who have to live with chronic pain.

People who love someone despite being hurt by them.

People who care about but also are estranged from each other.

…

 

In Almodóvar’s characters, instead of “fringes of the society”, I often see my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, and all the other women whose inner-lives I have been exposed to as they were caring for me. The events and locations may not be the same, the style may be overly theatrical or soap-opera-ish, but the stories and emotions that burst out on the screen, and in contrast are swept under the rug or pushed to the fringes in real life, are recognizable.

Beyond his focus on women and gender, topics such as inter-generational impact of military dictatorship, religion, and, in his last film, euthanasia are all covered by Almodóvar with a political perspective that hits too close to home.

 

In Dolor y Gloria (Pain and Glory), the Almodóvar film with a protagonist that most closely resembles Almodóvar himself, we see scenes of the protagonist’s childhood, his mother washing clothes in the river with other women in the village singing together. Almodóvar’s love for these women and many others, his observations of their behavior, and his ear for their stories are apparent in all his creative work. I often think if we wanted to represent our (Mediterranean, Black Sea, Balkan, Latin American …) mothers collectively, it can be done through the archive of Almodóvar’s films.

In The Guardian interview for Dolor y Gloria, where Antonio Banderas plays the protagonist, Almodóvar says “I felt like a mother who has lost her son” when talking about Banderas leaving Spain for a career in Hollywood. In this light, I would like to conclude this post by wishing all who has ever mothered someone a Happy Mother’s Day, including Pedro Almodóvar.

 

PhD#2: Ehsan Yousefzadeh-Asl-Miandoab

 

Note: On April 9, 2025, my second PhD student, Ehsan Yousefzadeh-Asl-Miandoab, successfully defended his thesis (here is the preprint). I said some words about him after the defense. The text below was my write-up to be prepared for those words.

 

Ehsan started his PhD three months after Ties, but I knew of Ehsan before Ties.

By the time Ehsan applied for my PhD opening, I had already assessed Ehsan twice for different openings in our group. The first one was for Zsolt István’s PhD position and the second was for the DAPHNE project, both for very hardware-oriented topics that included FPGA programming. Ehsan was one of the strongest candidates for those positions as well, but world politics interfered. While FPGAs are the trickier hardware platform, when it comes to the US sanctions against Iran, the rules for GPUs are more relaxed, so I was able to hire Ehsan for my project.

 

Ehsan’s start at ITU completed the founding members of the RAD group: Ties, Ehsan, and I. Us three had a brand new group to establish, so came the website and the logo, where Ehsan led the efforts. 

 

In the beginning, I had to convince Ehsan to pace himself, and that is a challenge for someone like me who doesn’t know how to pace herself before experiencing exhaustion signs. Ehsan wanted to do his research, maintain an excellent github repo for all the code and data he creates, prepare extensive teaching material, record youtube videos for that material, write technical blog posts about the papers he has read, and fly rockets to the moon all at the same time. It is great to see that fire in someone, and one shouldn’t kill it. But doing everything in parallel isn’t possible, and one has to learn how to prioritize and adjust over time. I can’t claim I always guided him perfectly when it comes to prioritizing, but we established a more reasonable pace. 

 

For the core part his PhD, Ehsan took on a challenge where neither of us were experts on; using machine learning (ML) for systems. More specifically, he wanted to use ML to estimate memory needs of deep learning training workloads to effectively guide resource management and collocation decisions for these workloads. While testing different GPU collocation ideas, we found out-of-memory errors to be one of the biggest challenges against collocation and often overlooked in literature. Hence, we needed something to minimize them. We tried the more analytical techniques found in prior published work, but they led to drastic misestimations. So, Ehsan wanted to try out something learning-based to see if it could lead to more precise estimations. But, once again, we were not experts in ML. We tried and failed, tried and failed, on and on. Nevertheless, Ehsan persisted, kept asking for help from different ML experts, and got many good suggestions, but they did not lead anywhere either. In the end, Ehsan found the collaborator he was searching for all along; Reza. I cannot claim any credit in that search effort, it was all Ehsan, I just did my best to prevent him from giving up. With the help of Reza, Ehsan built his estimator, and the last two chapters of his thesis got unblocked. 

 

Ehsan also persisted despite the many challenging news coming from his homeland and not being back home since he moved to Denmark for his PhD. While I mention this here as part of my praise of Ehsan, I want to emphasize that no one should go through this, especially to get any sort of praise. 

As a result of this, some of our one-on-ones with Ehsan turned into venting sessions commiserating over politics and PD3.

 

And finally, a couple of fun facts. 

Ehsan probably knows Turkish music better than I do. I don’t know how many times I heard Turkish tunes coming from his office or headphones.

Early in his PhD, Ehsan decided to get some plants for his office and got me one as well. As someone who never managed to keep plants alive at home, including cacti, I somehow still manage to keep this plant alive, while Ehsan killed all of his. I even had to smush the alive parts of the plant back into the soil after its root broke off from the rest, and it keeps flowering, as you can see below. Looking at it is a good way to remind myself to keep being stubborn, and I hope I keep motivating my students to do the same.

 

Congrats for a well-earned PhD! Looking forward to collaborating further with you.

 

February 25, 2025 - after the root broke off from the rest of the plant.

April 10, 2025 - the current state.

Keep Calm and Embrace Your Anger

Jo: You don’t know, you can’t guess how bad it is! It seems as if I could do anything when I’m in a passion. I get so savage, I could hurt anyone and enjoy it. I’m afraid I shall do something dreadful some day, and spoil my life, and make everybody hate me. Oh, Mother, help me, do help me!

Mrs. March: [… starts with something soothing …] You think your temper is the worst in the world, but mine used to be just like it.

Jo: Yours, Mother? Why, you are never angry!

Mrs. March: I’ve been trying to cure it for forty years, and have only succeeded in controlling it. I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

 

In the first Avengers film, we meet Bruce Banner in a state where he seems to have figured out how to keep himself calm and not turn into Hulk. Tony Stark annoyingly keeps asking him what his secret is, but Bruce avoids the answer till the final battle scene, where this dialog takes place.

Captain America: Dr. Banner, now might be a good time for you to get angry.

Bruce Banner (right before he turns into Hulk): That is my secret captain, I am always angry.

 

In my pre-teens, I once kicked the door of the small bathroom in our house. After the kick, I froze, staring at the hole my foot created on the door. I was shocked at my anger, the reasons for it I can’t even remember, but my bigger shock was the realization of how shitty the bathroom door was. [1]

 

“I can’t image you angry.” is a statement I have heard many times, from different people, at different stages in my life. In contrast to these people’s impression of me, when I think of my anger, the hole I created on our bathroom door and the quotes listed above come to my mind.

I have had anger bursts like the door-kick all my life even though they happen less and less these days. Except for a very few occasions, they do not happen in front of people, and while there is an incident that triggers them, they are rarely due to one reason. 

 

Here are some occasions that made me want to turn into Hulk.

 

At EPFL, I usually had lunch with Twin Sister. During one of our lunches, we sat next to a couple of male EPFL students. One asked the other, in English, if he had sex with so and so, and after hearing the positive answer, he said “So, she was easy.” I turned to them, as they continued their dialogue, with the desire to break my lunch plate on the head of the guy who made the statement. [2] Then, I heard Twin Sister say in Turkish “Calm down. We can vent on this later.” I don’t know what she saw on my face to make her react that way, but when I turned back to her, I could see her anger on her face.

 

When I was interviewing for jobs toward the end of my PhD, during one of my one-on-ones, I was asked if I would be comfortable taking the whole parental leave if I had a baby. There were a lot of “if”s there, none of which should have been relevant to my interview. The bigger irony was this was at a place where the maternity leaves were (and still are) unreasonably short. I was angry but tried my best to reply calmly “I am not considering having a child anytime soon, but if I did, I would use the whole maternity leave as it is my legal right.”

 

The year I joined ITU, I once sent an announcement about a postdoc position in Germany targeting female applicants to the mailing list of all faculty members. Shortly after, I received the following reply from a male colleague.

“Hi Pinar

You might not be aware but Denmark has a law against discriminatory hiring practices. You can read more about it here (in Danish sorry) https://www.danskerhverv.dk/radgivning/ansattelse-rekruttering/rekruttering/det-ma-du-ikke-skrive-i-en-jobannonce/

Best regards

XXX”

While I swore at him in Turkish in my head, I decided not to reply to this email.

 

Then, here are some re-occurring triggers fueling my anger.

Whenever a white straight European man with a traditional family life mansplains to me and others “DEI is not just about gender.” after a mention of a DEI event that targets women in Computer Science.

Whenever someone says “this would hurt the chances of Turkey becoming a member of EU” after something anti-democratic happens in Turkey.

Whenever a corrupt politician’s career ends or takes a hit due to an affair instead of their actual corruption.

Whenever I read / see the news.

 

Finally, I have also moments where I simply have anger that is turned inward as a combination of both internal and external frustrations that are often a result of unresolved or under-processed anger.

 

There has been an increased awareness about accepting our emotions, even the ones that have negative connotations such as anger, rather than suppressing them, as they are a guide. This does not mean you must act on every single emotion but try to understand the underlying cause and see how we can address the cause.

“Anger is meant to be respected. Why? Because anger is a map. Anger shows us what our boundaries are. Anger shows us where we want to go. … Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out.”

The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron

When my cousin was rejected a Schengen visa for his trip to Copenhagen to come visit me back in Spring 2023, I was furious at the Schengen countries in general due to the spiking number of visa rejections toward Turkish people from all over Europe in those days. But I was even more furious at myself for not being able to give up my personal comforts and spending my best years serving a land, who will never accept me truly. With that initial fury, I remember wanting to write on our department Teams channel about this situation. I wrote and rewrote and rewrote some text but then deleted it completely and wrote a text message to Illegitimate Daughter instead. Chatting with her calmed me down. Eventually, I put my frustration into a series of blog posts [1, 2, 3, 4] about my passport’s relation to the Western world, which was probably way more constructive than writing something on work Teams.

Similarly, I am active in DEI activities both at my work and research community, as much as I can, rather than only venting frustrations with other frustrated parties.

 

In Season 2 of Sex Education, our teens discover a junkyard, where they can smash things to release their anger. I sometimes wish such a junkyard was available to me. In other words, I wish we allowed more room for venting frustrations without belittling them or even acting anger out through non-harmful ways, like my door-kick or the Sex Education junkyard, rather than labeling such actions uncivilized. A healthy dose of venting or acting out anger can help one to move onto the more constructive acting upon stage more easily, decide what the acting upon action should be, and minimize the anger/rage that eventually ends up being turned inward.

 

Tori Amos’ album Boys for Pele is a great example of art created by a person with silent (female) anger, and is my #1 go-to album when I need to calm down. On the album’s cover, Tori sits down holding a rifle. I am not an expert on rifles, but the rifle lock is not in a position that will allow you to fire. There are several interviews where Tori talks about her own interpretation of this album cover, and you are welcome to have your own. To me, it says, “I am not here to shoot you, but I am not putting the gun down either for your or anyone else’s comfort as it is part of me.”

 

Happy belated International Women’s Day to all my (angry) sisters!

 

[1] This small second toilet-only bathroom was a luxury considering that we lived in a two-bedroom rental. Later my parents bought their own place, which was bigger but came with only one bathroom, making this small bathroom, and the hole my anger created on its door, to be among the things that we reminisced the most from our previous home.

[2] No matter what I may dream in my head due to my anger, I want to make it clear that I have neither hurt nor wanted to hurt anyone physically in real life, at least not intentionally; once the frisbee I threw hit someone, and I was very sorry for it.

 

The Elephant Man & The Straight Story

Note: This post is written to commemorate David Lynch, who died last month. While I tried to keep it to a minimum, the post contains some spoilers for The Elephant Man & The Straight Story.

 

When I was younger, I spent a good amount of time thinking about Blue Velvet, in addition to frequently revisiting the scenes In Dreams play in the movie.

I take Twin Peaks (the original series, the movie, the revival, and all the extras) as a meditative experience and have no intention of delving deeper into its plot.

Watching Lost Highway or Inland Empire make me ask the question “Am I high?”

I am impressed by the new Dune movies, but I don’t have any desire to rewatch them, while I am happy to rewatch any David Lynch movie anytime including his Dune.

As someone whose tastes were often put into question during her 20s, I made my peace with the people treating me like an oddball because of what I like or dislike. So, when someone asks me if I like a film, book, artwork … and if my answer is “yes”, I sometimes add “but I also like David Lynch movies” to that “yes” to let the person decide whether they can trust my taste.

 

David Lynch was notorious for creating hard to comprehend and describe films. Despite creating confusion in viewers, his films were very clear on a few things: amplifying “there is more than meets the eye” both for the people and the places, unveiling the sinister behind the idyllic facades, and mixing up the usual and the unusual. Today, these patterns are called Lynchian.

Inspired by his patterns, in my attempt to commemorate him here, I pick the two David Lynch movies that are considered the most accessible to the viewers, hence the most unusual for David Lynch: The Elephant Man (1980) and The Straight Story (1999).

 

The Elephant Man is based on the real-life story of Joseph Merrick, who lived in London in the late 19^th century. Joseph, referred to as John in the movie, is treated as a “freak” by others due to the way he looks. He is admitted to a hospital by a well-intentioned surgeon, Frederick Treves. However, even at the hospital, the society keeps viewing John as a “freak”, and he becomes an object of display for the people, who pay to visit and see “The Elephant Man.”

During one of those visits, John hosts a high society couple, offering them tea and acting like a solid gentleman, while the couple acts odd and uneasy. It is a scene that subverts the labels we so easily put on people and makes you ask the question “Who is really the freak here?” Therefore, it is a scene that is as Lynchian as it gets.

I watched The Elephant Man back when I was as BSc student. I can’t remember the exact year, but it should be around 2007. After my watch, I thought it might be the best film I had ever watched, and this scene stayed with me. In my next chat with my father, whose love of cinema I inherited, I asked him if he had ever seen The Elephant Man. He said yes and immediately started to reminisce about this scene.

My dad saw The Elephant Man in theaters shortly after it was released. Despite the almost 30 years difference in our respective viewing of the movie, the same scene made a long-lasting impact on both of us. Yet that scene’s impact comes from being a part of the whole of The Elephant Man, making both the movie and that scene timeless.

 

The Straight Story is also based on a true story. It is the story of Alvin Straight, who made a journey from Iowa to Wisconsin on a lawn mower in his 70s, two years before he passed away, to visit his sick brother.

When we meet Alvin in The Straight Story, he is on the kitchen floor unable to walk. The movie juxtaposes him with a baby. Alvin is old, but for many practical purposes, he is like a baby.

Alvin hears about his older brother’s stroke. They have been estranged, and, as we have already established, Alvin’s health is not great. Both despite and because of these facts, Alvin decides to go on a trip to reunite with his brother. He can’t have a driver’s license due to his health, so he takes the lawn mower.

On the road, Alvin encounters various people. Each encounter represents a different phase of a human’s life, as the person/people Alvin meets gets older, and reveals a different dark story either from Alvin’s or the person’s/people’s past.

Eventually, Alvin reaches his brother, the person who is closest to his age among all the people he encountered on the road, completing both his personal and literal journey. As if this is not a satisfying enough end to this road movie, his brother is played by Harry Dean Stanton, who once played an iconic road-movie protagonist himself in Paris, Texas (1984).

While The Straight Story can be interpreted as the simple straight story of human life, all the human stories we hear in Alvin’s journey underlines the complexities behind all “simple” human lives, once again fitting the Lynchian.

 

I heard the news of David Lynch’s death when it was announced at Husets Biograf during the introduction for the screening of Revenge, the first feature film of The Substance’s director Coralie Fargeat. You could hear the audible gasps of the audience, including mine, as a reaction to the news, and we all raised our glasses to David Lynch right before Revenge started.

After I left the theater, I checked my phone, as we all do now as a reflex. There was a message from Illegitimate Daughter about the death of David Lynch. I texted a few people about the news as well including Sister in Movies. It was clearly a notable sad moment for all my close movie buddies.

 

David Lynch left a mark on so many people, especially because of his unique style. That style had the power to make us go through a cocktail of opposing reactions at the same time. For example, the In Dreams scenes from Blue Velvet, which I referred to in the beginning of this post, can make you feel fear, sadness, jealousy, love … due to what is going on in the foreground, and can make you laugh due to the figures in the background.

Overall, I am grateful to him for challenging us in all the good ways over the years.