World cinema has been researched quiet a lot,but still there are many countries that have movies worth reporting, which still stand in the shadow. One of these countries is Turkey, especially recently there has been a movie boom in this country. There are times were one might find more Turkish movies playing in the theater, than international ones. For some who are not familiar with the Turkish cinema, this might be a set back, but for others who would like to brighten their horizon, it is a grand chance to get to know a different sort of style. But is it really different in style from Hollywood?
If we look at the recently made movies in Turkey we see two directions, the one direction is very mainstream, made for the masses, like the movies by Cem Yilmaz and the other direction is quiet artistic, if we take a director like Nuri Bilgi Ceylan, who is a household name in movie festivals. Further more there are those Turkish directors, who did not grow up in Turkey, but in a different country, but still could be counted into Turkish cinema, since the topics they are interested in involve problems in which the Turkish culture is involved in, like Fatih Akin movies.
Recently there have been many new universities in Turkey who offer cinema/television studies, and the study field has been as much as a boom as the many Turkish movies that recently hit the theaters. We are talking of a process in the last 10 years, starting in the 21st century and not the previous years. This difference should be made clear, since there was a time, where Turkish cinema was at a low point and hardly any movies were made and before that, there was the Yesilcam era where many Turkish films were made, though none of them, except for Yol, gained world wide acceptance. These are different eras and different films were made back then.
Why Turkish movies still don’t manage to gain international attention, is something worth researching, but there are one or two points of why is should gain international attention and one or two points why maybe an international audience might not be able to cope with the movies.
First why should it gain international attention:
Turkey is a country that strives between the western and eastern culture, so one could see it as a place were two very different cultures meet together and melt into one. This is a very good thing and very interesting, since lately the view on Muslim culture has had a set back due to terror. Further on it is a great spot for an analyses to see in which points these two different cultures unite and where they separate. A lot of problems in Turkey are due to the fact that they do not know to with culture to relate to and this is a theme that is visible in the comparison of Turkish movies, some movies show the modern life in Istanbul and others show the life in villages and just there the differences are overwhelming.
The western countries sometimes see Turkey in such a light, where one who has seen the country really wonders where they got those ideas from. Watching more mainstream Turkish movies really might open the perception of people, this would also be mandatory for different cultures and their cinema that lives by bias.
Films like that, first might declare that putting everyone under one roof is most certainly wrong, and second would make the developed countries see, how really developed some parts of the less developed countries are, if not more ahead of them.
Movies that would declare this understanding in Turkey would be the most recent movie like, Romantik Komedi or movies likeOrganize Isler, Neseli Hayat, Babam ve Oglum and the likes.
Now the problem with those movies are, though they are easy to watch, most of the time creativity is missing, the movies seem to be a low copy of Hollywood movies, made fit for Turkish understanding, but nonetheless it shows the modern concept of Turkish life.
Second, why might an International audience not be able to cope with Turkish movies:
Turkish cinema, especially if we take Turkish comedy movies, are very fixed on their own audience, which means a Turkish audience. The jokes would be very hard to first be translated in the same meaning into another language and further on another culture might not find it as funny as the country of the movies origin. But this term only goes for mainstream movies.
The more independent cinema, like Nuri Bilgi Ceylan movies, have different aspects to concentrate on like the cinematography, that one could relate to, if one is not able to relate to the plot. The aesthetic of the movie is simply a joy for all eyes.
We all know that Bollywood does more movies per year than Hollywood, so who says Hollywood is dominating the world. It does, with world wide fame and export, but not with wold wide production, the first rank would go to India. So it would be very wise to keep track of countries, like Turkey, who did not have a permanent cinema past as Hollywood, but what is not can still become, and the first spot is due to fall into different hands sooner or later. Like European cinema which had to hand the first spot over to Hollywood before in the past.
The new interest of Turkey in cinema did start and this new found interest does not seem to be something that will be short lived. All eyes should be on the countries that recently came up w
No comments:
Post a Comment