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Two films
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I spent most of the weekend at the cinema halls, watching several films, from the Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Reader," to some good latest examples of Turkish cinema, such as "Güneşi Gördüm" (I saw the sun) and "Issız Adam" (The Lonesome Man) and the horrible "Recep İvedik II".
Definitely, I would strongly advise all our readers not to miss either "Slumdog Millionaire" or the "Reader" but, "Güneşi Gördüm" and "Recep İvedik II" are musts for those who really would like to understand the desperate situation Turkey is in at the moment as well as the need to overcome such problems underlined in both of those two movies for a prosperous feature for this land and people.
With a superficial look, there was nothing common in these two films. However, with a careful look not only we may find a strong correlation between the churl Recep İvedik character and the country turned into a "wasteland", small and sincere aspirations for a simple life condemned to "wasted hopes" and the "brotherhood" being replaced by "antagonism" in the "Güneşi Gördüm." İvedik is just a by-product of lost hopes, wasted lives, cultural shallowness produced by cities being turned to big villages because of a wild migration not necessarily purely a result of the separatist terrorism holding the country hostage but also due to the "transformation" we have lived at the expense of the rural and agrarian Turkey.
"Güneşi Gördüm" was not just the sad story of a family from a southeastern mountain village. A father suffering the pain of sending one of his sons to the military and losing another son on the mountains in the fight against terrorism has become the common story of this land for the past 30 years. The "If you die, you will become a martyr, if I die I will become a dead terrorist," reply of the son on the mountains to the one serving in the military was indeed manifestation of the bitter reality that those who cannot understand why many people in this country keep on stressing there is no difference in the pain of a mother whether his son died as a terrorist or became a martyr. Irrespective where and how they lose their lives, they are all our sons. Can anyone dispute the "Is there anything more valuable than a life?" of the uncle in Oslo or can anyone resist not to feel the joy deep in his/her heart of the mother seeing his youngest son who lost one of his legs to a mine walking once again after he was fixed with a prosthesis leg?
Is Kırmızıgül new Yılmaz Güney?
Though it might be an exaggeration for now to say script-writer, director and producer Mahsun Kırmızıgül is becoming the new Yılmaz Güney of Türkish cinema, but he is definitely different and promising. He used many allegories in the film. The death of the baby "Serhat" or "border" in a washing machine, that is to a tool of "modern luxury life" brought the family’s struggle to survive in the big city to the last limit and served as a trigger to convince them return to their deserted mountain village. Similarly, only in Oslo (which represents in the film a place with freedoms) a father managed to hang side by side on a wall photos of his "soldier" and "terrorist" sons. Message was obvious. For the sake of individual freedoms Katos (the transsexual character abhorred by his family and the society) undoubtedly will continue trying to see the sun, or expose themselves, even if they know like "Berfin" or the Anatolian Snowdrop that struggle because of their love for the sun to make their way up the snow that they know will lose their life moments after reaching sunlight.
In the "Recep İvedik 2", on the other hand, the churl İvedik character was indeed nothing less than the "lost soul" of the rural Turk who grew up in the suburbs of the big city without developing a sense of belonging and thus developing a "rebellious" and "rejectionist" character incompatible with the urban society. Don’t we see İvediks in all walks of life in modern Turkey; particularly in politics. Is it not that İvediks have started to domşnate our society? Otherwise, why was it that "Recep İvedik 2" became the most watched film of recent times?
In thinking the "Turkey of 2019" we have to accept that we are doomed to suffer more unless this fight is brought to an end and terrorists stop going up the mountains claiming they aim "to save the people" and the administrators on the low ground provide a political resolution to the problems rather than solely concentrating on the easier, though costlier, "military option" for the protection of the national and territorial integrity of this country.
With a superficial look, there was nothing common in these two films. However, with a careful look not only we may find a strong correlation between the churl Recep İvedik character and the country turned into a "wasteland", small and sincere aspirations for a simple life condemned to "wasted hopes" and the "brotherhood" being replaced by "antagonism" in the "Güneşi Gördüm." İvedik is just a by-product of lost hopes, wasted lives, cultural shallowness produced by cities being turned to big villages because of a wild migration not necessarily purely a result of the separatist terrorism holding the country hostage but also due to the "transformation" we have lived at the expense of the rural and agrarian Turkey.
"Güneşi Gördüm" was not just the sad story of a family from a southeastern mountain village. A father suffering the pain of sending one of his sons to the military and losing another son on the mountains in the fight against terrorism has become the common story of this land for the past 30 years. The "If you die, you will become a martyr, if I die I will become a dead terrorist," reply of the son on the mountains to the one serving in the military was indeed manifestation of the bitter reality that those who cannot understand why many people in this country keep on stressing there is no difference in the pain of a mother whether his son died as a terrorist or became a martyr. Irrespective where and how they lose their lives, they are all our sons. Can anyone dispute the "Is there anything more valuable than a life?" of the uncle in Oslo or can anyone resist not to feel the joy deep in his/her heart of the mother seeing his youngest son who lost one of his legs to a mine walking once again after he was fixed with a prosthesis leg?
Is Kırmızıgül new Yılmaz Güney?
Though it might be an exaggeration for now to say script-writer, director and producer Mahsun Kırmızıgül is becoming the new Yılmaz Güney of Türkish cinema, but he is definitely different and promising. He used many allegories in the film. The death of the baby "Serhat" or "border" in a washing machine, that is to a tool of "modern luxury life" brought the family’s struggle to survive in the big city to the last limit and served as a trigger to convince them return to their deserted mountain village. Similarly, only in Oslo (which represents in the film a place with freedoms) a father managed to hang side by side on a wall photos of his "soldier" and "terrorist" sons. Message was obvious. For the sake of individual freedoms Katos (the transsexual character abhorred by his family and the society) undoubtedly will continue trying to see the sun, or expose themselves, even if they know like "Berfin" or the Anatolian Snowdrop that struggle because of their love for the sun to make their way up the snow that they know will lose their life moments after reaching sunlight.
In the "Recep İvedik 2", on the other hand, the churl İvedik character was indeed nothing less than the "lost soul" of the rural Turk who grew up in the suburbs of the big city without developing a sense of belonging and thus developing a "rebellious" and "rejectionist" character incompatible with the urban society. Don’t we see İvediks in all walks of life in modern Turkey; particularly in politics. Is it not that İvediks have started to domşnate our society? Otherwise, why was it that "Recep İvedik 2" became the most watched film of recent times?
In thinking the "Turkey of 2019" we have to accept that we are doomed to suffer more unless this fight is brought to an end and terrorists stop going up the mountains claiming they aim "to save the people" and the administrators on the low ground provide a political resolution to the problems rather than solely concentrating on the easier, though costlier, "military option" for the protection of the national and territorial integrity of this country.
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