directed by Mahsun Kırmızıgül
Recently I told you I need to discover Turkish cinema more and I’ve just found another gem that I’d like to share with you. We move back to the 60s where we meet Mahir (Talat Bulut), a teacher living in the city. One day, the man is asked to move to a remote village and educate the children there. Right after arriving, he realises that there’s no school and people there have never had a chance to study. However, the villagers are so nice and hospitable that Mahir decides to help them. They wish to build a small school where the children could finally learn to write and read. And I honestly thought that it would be an inspiring story about a teacher who has a very difficult task yet manages to succeed. And somewhere in the middle you may realise that Mahir is not the main character here. At some point we’re following Aziz (Mert Turak), who is one of the villagers. The man is disabled and everyone around have been laughing at him for years. His parents have also treated him as someone worse since Aziz couldn’t do what other men could, so in his eyes he’s useless. Mahir, however, wants to help Aziz and even though it’s horribly hard, he wishes to teach him to speak and communicate with others. This film is so full of everything that it’s hard for me to even tell you what it’s about. It’s for sure about the passion of teaching and wishing for the students to develop. But it’s also about Turkish culture and traditions that can be beautiful, but also harmful for some. It’s also about two worlds meeting – a man from the city and villagers from the mountains. Then it’s also about love and what it means to love someone. Like there’s way too many things to mention here. And surprisingly, for most of the time, it’s actually a comedy, even though it sounds so dramatic. Plus, one more thing, in the film it says that it’s based on a real story. But I cannot tell you more because I would spoil the ending and that’s a real cherry on top. When I saw the ending I was like “oh come on, this is way too fictional” and then they said that it’s actually true, which really surprised me. So I wish you a lovely time with this Turkish production and hope you’ll get surprised as well. By the way, the scenography is spectacular in this one!
My rating: 7/10
S.
I have nothing to watch 