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Reviews
Biz Kimden Kaçiyorduk Anne? (2023)
Rare example of an Eco-feminst script from Turkiye
I am so grateful to find an Eco-feminst production from Turkiye. I am fed up with the father and son conflicts and praising of patriarch in the Turkish media. This serial was a fresh breath to take although there is still some issues concerning patriarch manifested by police, guns, father's black car etc..
Though i would like to see more of how did the mother and daughter decorated their private rooms. The rooms awaked the curiousity and hinted some mystery but at the end the rooms were plain and empty. Of course they could stay only for a short while in each hotel and had no chance to build a private space, yet i wish i could see more authenticity in the rooms.
Intertextuality between such a simple kids Classic Bambi is stunning. The serial earns my 8 shiny stars.
Yilbasi Gecesi (2022)
Tragicomic
I found the film tragicomic and watched it (especially the last 20 minutes) in tears instead of cheer.
Though the themes such as how the political correctness shows itself in the secular Turkish society and how the youth coming from different intellectual and sociological background deal with the moral issues were worked out with humor, that did not suffice to overcome the despair of the upper class family overall. The discontent of the family, who is throwing the party, has never been resolved from the beginning to the end.
Overall the aim of the film of giving hope and joy regarding of the name "new year's eve" has not been achieved.
9 Kere Leyla (2020)
Weird in positive sense
Loved the film. Ezel Akay you know this job.
Lilith, the first wife of Adam, and her not widely known story is performed with full of Humour.
There's a plot twist at the end. I was suspecting that the marriage counselor is either Afrodite or Lilith during the film, however I was surprised at the end.
I loved the colours, the casting, the songs and metaphors..
One of his interviews Ezel Akay revealed that the ascending violence towards women in Türkiye has been his motive to produce this film. The name of the film is depicting the moral of the story. Leyla Everlasting.
Maide'nin Altin Günü (2017)
Moral of the story: Do not underestimate the house wives
I found the house wives very realistic, yet not boring. It was fun to see their funny sides of their characters. The teenager character was not fitting well but necessary for the development of the detective story.
The unbelievable muscle power of a house wive is a reality, it was fun to see that detail.
Biz Böyleyiz (2020)
Comedy film that very enjoyable for international multicultural student groups
It's a movie that I can sit and watch together with my international students group, which are from different continents and cultures. I am glad that Caner Özyurtlu has courage to make such movies, despite all the discouraging comments of the public, and gives us chance to enjoy and laugh. Its a rare example of Turkish cinema in comedy genres in an international Niveau.
Since I follow him in his YouTube channel "Neyse Ne", I can realize how much he could accumulate of literature, performance arts, cinema .. etc. To be able to make his good quality comedy films.
Under the Skin (2013)
Another species from our planet, a queen bee, can be perceived as an alien
The beginning reminds me the one of the most popular children's book, the very hungry Caterpillar. "In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf." Scarlett Johansson starts spelling first bee like "zzz"s, which they turn to human like "na, na" s. A bee under the human skin.
Her drone bees (men with motorcycles) supply all her needs. First, clothes of a death prostitut. By the way, she finds an ant over the corpse, which is another arthropod like herself.
Then very hungry queen bee starts to prey, chooses men without connections. Each man symbolises a sperma while they are sinking into the dark waters, which is a bee's sac where she stores the sperma or her uterus. Even once one of the men there, bumps into an older sperma, short before it dries out.
The family drama on the shore is very uncomfortable, especially for the parents who have toddlers. The bee has on the other hand no empathy to the crying toddler, which is mammal a different species of her. She takes her prey and leaves the scene.
The last prey is an amorphous, probably a mutated one. He gets out of the sac and also changes the queen bee. The queen tries to eat, to have sex and to act like human, but in vain because she doesn't have the corresponding organs or conciseness.
Meanwhile her drones try to reach her. Drones can not find her, neither on the highway where she supposed to be, nor on the heights. She is all alone in wilderness without the protection of her drones. Now it's her time to be a prey. She seeks schalter in a hut. A human being finds her, tries to harm her and finally approaches her with fire and smoke just like the beekeepers approach to a bee hive in real world. The closeure, the fire scene is somewhat similar to the Radiohead's Karma Police video Clip, which was also directed by Jonathan Glazer.
Daha (2017)
The ultimate war between Cronus and Zeus
The war held between Cronus and Zeus, which ends up with the thriumph of Zeus, in expense of a crueller and harsher God. And it again takes place in the Aegean seesides.
The father Ahad (meaning one) is the only person and relative in Gaza's life. The father who reigns over the Middle Eastern fugitives means a lot to the son. When the first party of fugitives brought to the basement of the house, which is Olympicly situated over the rocks, the father orders them "to eat whatever brought, to sleep, to defecate into the bucket and to wait till his call". When later in the film it comes to the second party of the fugitives its Gaza's turn to order them with the same words and gestures of the father. But we realize that they don't have fare share neither of the money nor of the name and reputation. The father puts Gaza's name on the lorry but in smaller letters and below the father's name. And he never gives him the money he earns from the work he has done. On the contrary, the father puts the blame the death of the child belongs to the women he raped (depicted as Cronus devoured all of his sons and daughters after their birth) on Gaza. Gaza's discontent can be observed in the scene where they are dining on the two ends of a table, where the father is on a big comfortable chair while Gaza is on a small one (Later Gaza will sit on the big chair).
Dating the prostitut is also the beginning of the Gaza's rise in opposition, because the prostitut says "when the setted alarm bells ringing it will be too late to do something, if you are going to do something it has to be now".
Gaza knows he is cleverer than his father, because he achieved in his school and also his application for a better school is already granted. He tries to get out of his father's world and starts his own, but this is also hindered.
Then first, he tries to mingle with the people (the fugitives); he sleeps in the basement, listens their music, watches their dances, even talks to one of them (Ahra). But one night he witnesses that she is kissing the gendarma commander. The acts of corrupted commander and her infidelity breaks Gaza's faith on men, too. His rage rises. Following this travma he turns more destructive into himself and to the others. One of his destructive attempts he founds the hide, where his father uses for money. He takes the money for himself, because he believes it is his right to have. He pays his father's business partners for murdering his father. The father's ex- , Gaza's new- business partners are nothing other than Cyclopes, who is helping Zeus winning the battle over Cronus, throwing big rocks in the battle. We see in the film how one of the guys puts a big rock onto the father's grave.
In the end of the film Gaza (who turned to Zeus) puts borders in the basement, rules over the people harsher and crueller than his father had done.
I like the film as a good analogy of the Cronus vs Zeus battle of power. However, it's so pesimist almost as a solid example of a learned helplessness.
A big earthquake, which is splitting the rocks where the house and basement located and big waves triggered by the earthquake might swept all this stage. The triumph of Terra Mater might make the film an example of contamprary art. The film is more like a simple statement of how patriarch keeps reproducing itself without any criticism to it.
Incendies (2010)
An Incredible Oidipus Rex remake
The tragedy of Sophokles "Oidipus Rex" was this time played through the Iokaste's eyes. As she is trying to turn back to South to find her baby, which she had to leave to a orphanage, she tells the soldiers that she wants to find her husband. It's probably the very first hint about her destiny.
The swimming pool symbolises the subconscious, which at the beginning of the film was completely empty. The water with its chthonian character fils the pool up in each step of exploring the truth about the mother's past.
In peripheral (a southern of a Middle East County) we see the cities ruined by the guns, bombs and war. When it's Western world (a modern city in Canada) we notice that nature was polluted.
The film is an incredible critical of culture in comparison with nature.
Takva (2006)
Father doctrine leads to catatonia
Muharrem lives his whole life in his father's home, works in the job, which assigned by his father. Muharrem's first boss was the father of his current boss and Muharrem's own father was the one who introduced him to the older boss. Morover, Muharrem is a member of a religious sect led by another powerful father figure. He forbiddens himself any kind of women relationship and intimacy. Anytime he is waking up in an arousal state following a dream - interestingly always the same woman, who he has no clue who she actually is- he washes himself to clean from the sin. So far he takes himself innocent, humble person who is devoted himself to the Patriarch with greatfullness and feith. Until one day, when he was challenged by a sin other then lust. The seductions of material world like job promotion, priviligaes, being in a position to seal other's fate. In the film this was first showed in a scene where the fury member of the sect puts an apple -the universal symbol of the first sin- on the table while Muharrem is having his dinner and arguing with Rauf about collecting money from the mechanic who was drinking alcohol (raki) during Muharrem's visit. Struggling with these challenges makes him an anxious man. First he tries to cope with the new feelings by repeating over and over the old rituals like praying, cleaning and namaz. But his weapons (like praying) are no more sufficient to protect him. The talented actor Erkan Can reflects his feelings brilliantly. You can see Muharrem is in anger yet there is astonishment in his eyes. And during this struggle he finds no comfort or guidance from his Religious leader. Because religion is a distant, numb ideal, has no real power on when it comes to an actual threat. The moment that Muharrem realizes or finds out that the women in his dreams was actually the daughter of the religious leader he follows in that moment he collapses. This scene was implied with a heavy rain and flooding of the subconscious. That's the manifestation that he has never been innocent or clean from the sins as he thought he was. He was unconsciously dreaming for his leader's daughter, looking her with men's eye, which is taken as a great sin and ungratefulness to the sact in the eye of the religious public. The film ends Muharrem in state of catatonia. The religion cripples him yet his state of catatonia was declared a holy position by his religious leader and this is how the wheel goes on to grind the people further and further.