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1999, in the war against the Kurds, Ridvan (Olgun Simsek) seems to blow
a fuse, when he one day runs into a minefield, efen if his best army buddy
Cevher (Kenan Imirzalioglu) tries to prevent him. Of course, a mine goes
off, blowing away Ridvan's leg ...
Back home, a small Turkish village, Ridvan finds it difficult to
reintegrate, as the other villagers seem to be prejudiced against the war
cripple, even his fiancee Sekifa is not all the help she's supposed to
be. Soon, Ridvan starts drinking & smoking pot heavily, & in a
drunk & high state he insults even his friends, & soon the father
of his bride to be wants to call of the wedding. Ridvan tries to contact
Sekifa & persuade her to elope, but instead, she ditches him.
That night, he tells his friends what really went on during the war:
you see, Ridvan was in love with a Kurdish girl, Elif, before the war, but
suddenly she was evacuated. In the war, Ridvan & his battalion
went into an ambush, & only with the greatest of efforts did they
shoot their way out of it. The last of the enemy soldiers was actually a
girl, whom Ridvan killed in self defense, only to find out later that she
was Elif ....Left devastated by that, his fuse blew & he went out into
the minefield - boom.
A shocking story, his friends admit, but actually they know it's not
true because Elif is still alive. & as if that wasn't enough, one of
Ridvan's friends, Sencer, even elopes with Sekifa, his almost bride, &
makes little effort to hide it from Ridvan. But Ridvan has long started to
see ghosts of the past, & now, when he sees Elif, he takes out his
gun, puts it into his mouth, & bang ...
Ridvan's army buddy Cevher seems to have all going for him (even if he
has lost hearing in one ear during the war): He is a successful debt
collector for a loan shark, has free acces to cocaine & girls, &
plans to open a foodstand. However, when a big earthquake hits Istanbul,
all that seems to change: his favourite uncle is killed, his fahter Celim
(Bahri Beyat) is only just saved from the rubble, the food stand is
destroyed, & above all, for the funeral of his uncle Cevher for the
first time in his life meets his older brother Teoman (Teoman
Kumbaracibasi) whom he didn't even know about until now. & his brother
is not only a Freek but also a homosexual - now as a macho Turk try to ome
to terms with this.
For the longest time, Cevher tries to reject his brother altogether,
but by & by he learns the truth about him: That a long time ago,
before Cevher was even born, his father threw Teoman & his mother out
of the house because they had a bit of Greek blood running through their
veins, & suddenly, Teoman & his mum had to move to Athens, even if
Teoman was to young to know what Athens is - or why it should be any
different from Istanbul. He only knew he missed his dad, until he met a
friendly neighbour who was sort of a substitute dad for him - &
eventually , the substitute dad fucked Teoman.
Hearing that story, that doesn't necessarily shed a favourable light
onto his father, Cevher simply runs away, but eventually, when he sees his
brother getting into a fight with several attackers (Teoman was actually
trying to help a drag queen), Cevher helps him & in the course of the
fight kills one of his opponents - & in a frenzy cuts of his ear. Then
he has just time enought o hide his brother with a friend, & soon
enough he himself is arrested ...
The ending takes us back to the war again, with our heroes, as yung
soldiers, introducing himself, Ridvan wants to be a soccer player, who
might one day even play for Fenerbace Istanbul (Turkey's top team), while
Cevher wants to open a flower shop to make the future smell good.
Despite the heavy subject of post war traumata, this film stays
remarkably unpretentious & instead of treating its basic subject in an
academic manner, the film is more interested in telling its story (well, 2
stories), & also refuses to become a message movie. Shot mostly using
handheld digital cameras, the film also boasts some modern style without
falling for the flashy imagery of other similarly produced films, &
hows that even with a digi-cam one is able to produce poetic images every
now & again.
& though ery downbeat, this is an entertaining movie, that might
not offer any kind of salvation for its characters but features good
storytelling.
A note on this being a downbeat film: Oddly enough, the film's director
Ugur Yücel is one of Turkey's most popular comedy-actors & stand-up
comedians.
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