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Reviews
Sen Bir Meleksin (1969)
Turkish version of The Sound of Music
This is a typical film from Turkey's Yesilcam period. A lot of foreign movies were remade as Turkish movies which is not technically a problem. But what is a problem is that the original films and writers were never given credit. This film was "written" by Nejat Saydam in 1969 a few years after Sound of Music came out. This film takes place in Turkey in the modern era so there is no World War II and therefore no Nazis to escape from. The songs from Sound of Music, specifically Do, Re, Me, have been rewritten in Turkish. Also typical to Yesilcam films, this film is very dated and quite corny. But it's this corniness and datedness that make Yesilcam films so endearing to Turkish audiences. For anyone outside of Turkey, there's nothing really in this film worth seeing. The songs are performed and staged much better in Sound of Music, which also has a much deeper story. The acting here is campy and amateur. I would recommend this for those curious in Turkish remakes of Hollywood films.
Iyi Seneler Londra (2007)
Awful isn't enough to describe this train wreck
I don't really even know where to begin. Neither does the film actually. This is a poorly made film, period. The basic premise is this: a famous Turkish singer is going on tour with concerts in Berlin, Dusseldorf and London. There are probably more, but these are the ones they mention in the film. Forget the German dates, they have no bearing on this film whatsoever though they are mentioned in detail at the beginning during a press conference for the singer. When the singers press agent (presumably) mentions the London concert, the singer seems shocked and upset, as if she had absolutely no idea her tour would take her to London. That right there kind of gives you an idea of how ill-conceived this story is. We never know why she's upset except for someone named Enver. And we're all old enough to know that she probably had a relationship with Enver that ended 20 years ago. She arrives in London and meets her dear old friend who has been in London so long that she has a very thick Turkish accent and she has forgotten some Turkish, namely the word for someone from Poland (which is simply something you could never forget). The friend entrusts the singer with her child so she and her husband can go to dinner (A "very important dinner."). The singer is staying in a hotel with a very odd room service waiter (unforgivably over-acted by Ali Atay who seems to have been thinking he was in an improv version of a Strindberg play).
And it just gets worse and worse. I can't go on, lest the memory remain fresh in my mind. This is a film that will certainly become infamous as one of the worst of the year. It grossed just over $12,000. That seems like $12,001 too much. Perhaps they went to see the film by mistake? I saw it on TV and felt like I should get my money back.
Not to beat a dead horse, but this should be avoided. Or failing that, get a bottle of wine, sit back, and laugh your butt off.
Güzel Günler Görecegiz (2011)
Not sure why this won the Altin Portakal
**warning may contain spoilers** That 3 star vote is more for Anlat Istanbul, which was made seven years earlier and won the Istanbul Film Festival and was an inter-connected film about five characters and their lives over one day in Istanbul. The characters here are the same with a few slight changes. Both feature a man from the East of Turkey who doesn't speak Turkey for example. Both also feature the same actress Ozgu Namal. Anlat Istanbul is itself very much inspired by Paul Haggis' "Crash" which came out the previous year. While the idea of several characters crossing paths over the course of a day is certainly not a new concept, Jim Jarmusch for one uses the technique for many films. Rashoman and Pulp Fiction as well, though not over one day.
This film is alright, it's just odd to see a remake of Anlat Istanbul so quickly and with basically the same characters. People like saying Istanbul is cosmopolitan, but compared to cities like New York, London, and Paris, Istanbul is a cosmopolitan Turkish city. One sees people from all corners of Turkey, but rarely from any other country, save for Finnish executives who work at Nokia, or executives working for Coca-Cola. It would be nice to see a true mixture of people from all walks of life here including the African immigrants waiting to transit into Europe or the Levantin population of Italians living here for centuries. Sadly none of those people are featured in this film. There's a nationalistic nostalgia and people are yet only willing to focus on the Turkish and Kurdish lifestyles, branching out now and then to include gay or transvestite characters, as Anlat Istanbul does.
Good story, sure. And maybe someone will remake this in the next few years.
Plajda (2008)
If it sounds familiar...it is.
**warning may contain spoilers** There's a classic film called Some Like It Hot, with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. Lemmon and Curtis play two musicians who can't get any work. The only jobs going are for two woman musicians for an all-woman jazz band. After witnessing a mob hit in a garage, the two are chased by the mob. They pose as women and take the job in the woman's band, traveling by train to the beach in Miami. Tony Curtis falls in love with Marilyn Monroe and comedy ensues. Later, the mob from the garage arrives at the very same hotel in Miami. Now we come to this film, Plajda. Written by Murat Disli. It's about two actors who can't find work. The only job they can find is for two women in an acting troupe heading to the beach. After witnessing a mob hit, the two pose as women, take the job and head to the beach. Later the same mobsters arrive at the beach where the actors are performing.
This is an amazingly bad ripoff of Some Like It Hot. No credit is given to Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, who wrote the original film. You needn't waste any time on this film. It's like a high school drama club production.
Nar (2011)
Not good. Not good at all.
**warning contains spoilers** This film didn't make a whole lot of sense. It starts with a woman taking a long journey by bus to see a woman, a doctor. The doorman of the apartment building stops her on the way in asking her questions. She says she has an appointment. We learn that she's a fortune-teller and has come to tell Doctor Sema's fortune. She arrives at Sema's apartment and Sema shows her in. The fortune-teller makes coffee (Turkish coffee, commonly used to fortune-telling) and they sit and begin the session. Thrity minutes pass before any sort of action kicks in (the inciting action). It later transpires that the woman lost her granddaughter at Sema's hospital. It's only then, halfway though the movie that the doctor says she isn't Sema, but Sema's girlfriend Deniz. After a long standoff involving drugs and a gun, the real Sema arrives and the story is generally resolved. Probably most confusing in this film, and most unsatisfying is the end, in which we see the opening sequence again, shot for shot, but this time it's Deniz playing the role of the fortune-teller, making the long bus journey, being stopped by the doorman, and finally getting to the door, which is answered by the fortune-teller, this time in the role of Sema (really Deniz). That was a truly bizarre turn for the filmmakers to make and made an already dime-a-dozen story into something sub par. In Turkey, we've had a wave of films that are made by people who fancy themselves as theater impresarios and stage their films like bad dramas. Long scenes in one room between a few characters. But the story doesn't support their melodramatic approach. Without anything to kick off the story before the 30 minute mark, I wasn't able to anchor myself into this film and stay interested.
D@bbe (2006)
Wow this is bad
I saw this movie for free and I still want my money back. Where to start? This is a low budget film, though on various sites the budget has been listed anywhere from 1,000,000 Turkish lira (about $550,000) to 150,00 Turkish lira. I really hope it wasn't the higher figure, because putting out a film like this for so much money is a crime. The story is a confusing part spin on themes from The Ring. The director spent time in Japan and took film courses there. He doesn't live in Japan as someone wrote, but lives in Istanbul with a Japanese wife, who works as an art director. After the death of Tarik, people close to him begin getting terrifying emails. We never really get to understand what Tarik's relationship with the others is except a friend and rejected love interest of one. This comes out in the first seconds of the film. The story has elements of Islamic mythology and superstitions from Turkey, but it's hardly referenced in a way that a non-Islamic myth knowing audience would understand. The acting is awful and the dialog is even more so. The subtitles in English were insultingly bad. Since we speak Turkish, we just ignored the subtitles and suffered through the original dialog. The animation, done by supposedly one of the best animators in Turkey, was actually very good. The opening credits show was very good. But what the animator was doing on this film I'll never know. Most every scene begins with the camera placed at the ceiling level, giving a perspective of the room and then pans down to eye level. I'll repeat that, almost every scene. One great contrived scene has a woman going to the market and listing everything she's planning on buying, "Bread, and eggs, and some chocolate for myself." Another has three friends sitting precariously on top of a locomotive just, you know, for a chat. Ridiculous is too kind a word.
See it if you're a fan of schlock cinema and confusing plots and bad lines. Or if you're really masochistic, watch part 2 and don't forget to check out the poster for his latest film Bir Cin Vakasi. Worth a look for a good laugh. Absolute dreck.
Little Children (2006)
Surprised so many people love this film
I live in Istanbul and the TV information for this film didn't tell me who was in it, just the basic story. I started watching and thought it was pretty bad. Then the narration kicked in and I thought it was a kind of made for DVD comedy, or something like The Ten. BUt then I noticed Kate Winslett.
The film seems like it can't decide what kind of film to be. As a film buff, I do get black comedy and to me, there was nothing black comedy about this film. There were some truly "huh???" parts, shifting from absurdism to drama to emotionally charged scenes of family relations put to the test. It was just a mix that I think didn't work.
Had the film just stayed straight without trying to inject the humor, I think it would have been much more successful. I still can't believe the actors won so many awards speaking such terrible dialog.
Hababam Sinifi (1975)
For a Turkish audience
This is really a film for people living in Turkey or in Turkish culture. It's about as beloved in Turkey as Casablanca is in the US and it follows the tradition of the St. Trinian's films from the 1950's with naughty disruptive, but lovable high school kids. There's nothing new about the characters, the same basic ones that appear in films from most any culture. Think The Dead End Kids in the 70's. In the US, Welcome Back Kotter leaps to mind. Unfortunately time has not been kind to this film. The production values are pretty well dated, the soundtrack is off, splicing is a bit abrupt. If you don't know who the actors are and how famous it is, then you're missing 75% of the film. The film is about a group of students who have repeatedly failed their classes at a boarding school. There is the usual mother figure at the school and the strict disciplinarian who tried to install respect and dignity to the "kids." The actors appearing in the film are among the most famous in Turkey, but that doesn't do anything for the rest of the world unfortunately. The jokes also don't translate as many of them are word-plays on Turkish words and phrases. But for Turks, it is one of the most beloved films from the classic 70's Yesilcam Sinemasi period. Watch it with an open mind and for sociological interest. You'll see nothing that you haven't seen in your own country in 100 different films, but it's a insight into what Turks enjoy in their cinema. By the way Arsenal1988, there are just over 75 million people in Turkey, not over 100 million.