Change Your Image
kofistos
Reviews
Ikiru (1952)
human agency
The film puts emphasis on the human agency. After learning his deadly sickness and confronting with idea of the death, Watanabesan questions meaning of the life. At the end he achieves to break the limits that the bureaucracy (and the people who are parts of that system) imposes.
With the inspiration of his ex-colleague, he finds out that to live means to produce and to struggle. He wants to do service for the public and for that aim he struggles in an inefficient system.
For me, the best scenes in the film are dusty piles of the papers around which civil servants waste their time and a group of women who tries to convey their demands to the officials and cannot get rid of that vicious circle. Cinematographically, these scenes illustrate very well not producing but wasting. I also liked the happy birthday scene in which Watanabesan discovers meaning of the life and so is reborn.
Nan va Koutcheh (1970)
An everyday worry of a child
I liked the film because children and a dog, who are not mostly recognized as subjects by many film makers, are the main characters and the film shows their daily concerns in an unvarnished way. The child, who brings a loaf of bread to his house, confronts with the hardship of passing a dog-guarded territory. It is an everyday worry of a child so that this happened to me many times when I was a child. The child tries to develop tactics. At first, he looks around to find someone to pass the dog-guarded territory with. However his strategy fails when the man enters a house right before the dog. The child stops for a few seconds but he finds another solution and tries to get on well with the dog by giving a piece of bread. (At that point I thought that he will finish all of the bread step by step. However it did not happen as I guessed.) After the initial child passed the dog-guarded territory, other child faces with the same problematic and at that time something different occurs.
Tabutta Rövasata (1996)
spectacular scenes and an idiosyncratic story
It has been more than ten years since I watched the film for the first time. Whenever I watch it, I am impressed again by its scenes, its story, the acting, and its music.
Derviş Zaim made spectacular scenes with Ahmet Uğurlu holding a colorful peacock with the historical fortress and Bosphorus in the background.
Mahsun tries to survive everyday but he does not complain about it. Even though he is beaten by the police, he never gives up his passion for a tour of the city with a car. (Actually his passion for cars is also functional because it keeps him from being frozen like his friend.) His relation with animals changes. When there is no death risk like dying of hunger, he loves animals. For instance, he takes the dog that he hit to the veterinarian or he tours the city with a peacock. But if he is about to die of hunger, he can butcher a peacock to survive.
In the film we witness an "invention of tradition" that the government left the peacocks in Rumelihisarı to revive "the history". Therefore it's ironic to see Mahsun butchering the peacocks, which are political "tools" to revitalize "old customs", in order to eat.
No need to say that the acting is wonderful.
I love the music Baba Zula made. It really fits to the scenes and the story.
Babamin Kanatlari (2016)
the value of workers' lives
This realist film, which focuses on a worker, depicts one of the results of growing construction sector in Turkey in terms of labor. I liked the film because it shows the background of "reputable" residential projects that pop up everyday. The scenes are, unfortunately, very familiar to any person who lives in Turkey. It is commonly encountered that "prestigious" companies bargain on the workers who were murdered at workplace. These companies can get rid of their responsibility to sustain occupational health and safety through blaming the workers for not being careful. Furthermore, the government supports the companies by defining workplace homicide as "destiny" of a worker and "natural" result (fıtrat) of working. That's why it is strange to see Ministry of Culture and Tourism as one of the supporters of the film.