Relational geometries in our grand despair (2011) and Jules et Jim (1962)

Abstract

The festival success Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz / Our Grand Despair (2011) offers a rare example of a contemporary Turkish novel adapted primarily for transnational audiences. Author Barış Bıçakçı and director Seyfi Teoman present a love triangle that recalls French New Wave classic Jules et Jim (1962), another adaptation of popular fiction. The triangle in Our Grand Despair marks cultural differences as well as social progress in Türkiye and in world cinema. This chapter considers Our Grand Despair as a self-adaptation from novel to screen and as a reconfiguration of the love triangle for its time and place. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.