Çogunluk

"Majority" is the latest internationally recognized Turkish movie as it won the Lion of the Future Award at Venice Film Festival. All of the recent renowned Turkish movies like Kosmos, Bal and 3 Monkeys seem to have been recognized because of the fact that because they are simply trying to break with the conventionality. The fact that they are honored internationally does not mean that they were big box office hits. None of these films have been able to compete with the latest comedy potboilers and blockbusting dramas. Why do you think is that? I guess it has so much to do with scanty dialogue,sparse and bare description,long takes,portent silences, highly minimalist marginal story lines, wooden acting that is just trying to be too naturalistic. The average cinema-goer on the street does not like sit and brood before such a piece of celluloid. So there is no way that these movies can be crowd-pleaser no matter how many awards they get. Seren Yüce's Çoğunluk is not different in any way. From its name, you understand that the cinema-maker takes for granted that many people do live and believe as the few larger than life (!) characters in the movie. The story may seem highly realistic and the acting may seem solid indeed but let me clarify what I mean. When the leading actor Mertkan (Bartu Küçükçağlayan) is asked by his girlfriend Gül (Esme Madra) what his wildest dream is he just answers: "You tell,first" and Gül, who studies sociology at a decent university answers : " Find a handsome man and pop the question" To hear such a naïve answer from a sociology student sounds so lame. Plus, Gül is supposed to be a girl of Kurdish extraction. In spite of her brother's heavy accent, she speaks Turkish like somebody who was born in Istanbul. You may presume that there are people like that now. There may be but it sounds weird in a movie in which a dad says ''we are all Turkish and we are all Muslims' Rest assured that only a weird father would want his son to drop school ( even if it's a distance learning program) and join the army to do his military service. We may have our views (justified or not) about different ethnicities because of the shantytowns they built up in beautiful modern cities but again rest assured not each of us think that anyone who comes from Van is a hard-line communist engaged in subversive activities. It's just not that simple. So Majority is actually the story a marginal minority,indeed!

Çogunluk ( Majority ) is one of the movies that bring out the depressing cultural phenomenon which resides mostly the developing countries' cultures, as well as the majorities of the metropolitan western cities.

Though the movie tells about a boy,( a grown up one ) with a dominant father and an unhappy mother, it surely can be considered as a whole nightmare no one would like to participate in. The transition from the eastern cultures to a western one with no effort and morals is told perfectly.

Seren Yüce is a successful director with a smooth story telling and using acts and spaces to get into your mind. Settar Tanriogen and Nihal G. Koldas fits as the father & the mother so that you cannot even think they act. On the other hand Bartu Küçükçaglayan as the boy needs some more experience to bring out the anger of a late teenager, but still does fine.

The sets, cars, houses, the talks, the ideas are what the majority really live in. You cannot turn your back to the reality, and "Çogunluk" tells you how the majority suffers from the transition.

The characters in this film annoyed me greatly. Their black and white line of thinking included religion/race, school (not needed) versus army (useful), owners versus workers, men versus women, etcetera. I may safely assume that this annoyance was intentional, hence a compliment to the film makers. In other words, a job well done.

I don't think this situation is typically Turkish, and could easily be moved to other countries (except The Netherlands);-)) of course).

The only problem that I am stuck with, is that the title (Majority) cannot be explained from the contents. Neither contained the announcement any clues. But that is only a minor issue, and not demeaning for the end result we saw on screen.

This Turkish film is the honest portrayal of a lost generation which has to depend almost entirely on the parents. A lot of nice things have been written about this film's lead character but the truth is that he is a complete misfit. Hanging out with friends at Malls seems to be his only hobby. By making use of these two personality traits, Seren Yuce shows the differences between rich and poor in modern Turkey. However, one major trouble with this film is that its lead actor utterly fails to convey notions of hardships. Although his girl friend is from a minority community. It doesn't shock viewers to discover that she wouldn't be accepted by his parents. In the past director Seren Yuce worked with established Turkish directors such as Faith Akin and Yesim Ustaoglu. Majority is the first film by this director which has won some key awards at different important film festivals for itself as well as its protagonists.

Excellent story, perfectly scripted and beautifully shot! An exciting directorial debut from young Seren Yuce whom the Turkish cinephile would mostly recall with his assistance director duties in various acclaimed movies such as "Takva" of Oner Kiziltan and "Auf der Anderen Seite (Yasamin Kiyisinda)" of Faith Akin. Settar Tanriogen excels once again, Bartu Kucukcaglayan brings his natural acting abilities from the stage to white screen and Esme Madra comes out of nowhere, at least for me, to shock us with her amazingly convincing acting. This movie won 3 Golden Oranges for Best Movie, Best Directing and Best Actor and it deserved each and every one of them if not more. Prior to Antalya, Seren Yuce also won "Lion of the Future" award in Venice. It is not going to surprise me if more and more awards keep coming in different cinema festivals throughout the world. It is one of the better movies made in Turkey in the recent years and not to be missed at any cost!