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In an early scene of “Bliss,” the glowering stepmother of Meryem, a teenage rape victim in eastern Anatolia, gives the girl a rope with which to hang herself for bringing dishonor to her family, and you prepare to endure a Turkish variation of “The Stoning of Soraya M.” That recent harrowing film, based on a true incident, depicted the public execution of a young Iranian woman falsely accused of adultery, with the graphic ferocity of B-movie torture porn.

“Bliss,” fortunately, is not a one-note exposé created to shock, although its vision of a misogynistic patriarchy is almost as repellent. Adapted from Zulfu Livaneli’s 2002 novel, it observes the collision of two cultures, one ancient, the other modern, in contemporary Turkey. Directed and produced by Abdullah Oguz, “Bliss” has ravishing cinematography by Mirsad Herovic and a mystical score by Mr. Livaneli that match the novel’s feverish, poetic language. The natural beauty of the waters around Istanbul is breathtaking. And once the story moves from the Anatolian village where Meryem’s unconscious, brutalized body is discovered by a shepherd, the movie’s initially monochromatic palette bursts into brilliant color.

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