Sevmek Zamani

'Time to Love' is one of the best films of its time, not only in Turkey, but also in the world. Of course, in addition to director and screenwriter Metin Erksan and his staff, Musfik Kenter and Sema Ozcan, cinematographer Mengu Yegin also had a large share in it.

This is the best Turkish film I have ever seen even though it was filmed in 1965. The film stories a man who fell in love with a picture of a woman. The man represents eastern understanding of love which desires not to be with his lover. Because he is afraid if the lover is different than his dreams and his love itself gives a great pleasure to him, not the lover, this pleasure makes him a lover. Our female character Meral is a typical western woman with her relationship with her friends musical preferences etc... Love of this two characters lets us to analyze both of the cultures. Beautiful view of 1960's Istanbul makes you feel the heavenly atmosphere.

It looks like a Mexican soap opera, absurd plot from beginning to end, ridiculous dialogues, very bad sound effects, one wonders, and where is the director? Or maybe it was the time and what was done in Turkey, the villain is very bad, the good one is poor, fetishist and stupid. At least the woman does not follow a submissive role, but she does lose love, like a good soap opera. The music tires. The scene of the father-in-law and the son-in-law is pathetic, only the photography stands out, it is very contemplative and tired, a predictable ending, it could be a short film of 20 minutes maximum, it is to be seen in 2x if possible or avoid it completely.

Erksan's Sevmek Zamani expresses its story in a two-folded plane.First, a strict realism in the search for specific (but global at the same time) identity problem of Turkish people is investigated: Occident or Orient, the chaotic battle of these two different identity-construction choices. Second, through this separation, the movie shows us two perceptions of LOVE: An urbanized, modern female singer(Sema Ozcan) wanting to be with the guy (Musfik Kenter)who is in love with her poster on the one hand. On the other, the (Oriental) guy refusing this famous singer. The guy says:"I'm in love only and only with your poster". The fetish and the sublime! That Love turns to be some kind of Sufistic way of perceiving the world. The Magnificient scene of boat-tripping with the poster must be seen!

Take a knock-off Marcelo Mastroianni, except wooden as an actor, add a storyline that invests the two adult principal characters with the emotional intelligence of starry-eyed pre-teenagers, punch it up with a desperately over-the-top soundtrack and whaddaya get? A romantic flick that's so bad it borders on camp. Filmed in gorgeous b&w, with more pathetic fallacy than a human can tolerate-constant rain, tossing waves, whipping winds-not to mention the scene with three women running through the woods in high heels! Hilarious.

Supposedly worshipped by film aficionados, you're better off watching this on mute with no subtitles.