Komser Sekspir

If you are interested in Turkish cinema, and you want a few titles to get you started with, do not ever think about seeing a Sinan Cetin movie. He is a talented director unless he directs a feature film that is longer than several minutes.

Komiser Sekspir is one of the several movies Sinan Cetin directed over the years, ranging from bad to very bad, and Cetin fails once more. He is a spoiled, pretentious, unimaginative demagogue with no decent story-telling skills, and he generally builds his movies around empty, overly-populist, lumpen, pseudo-critiques of the 'system'.

The movie is badly written, actors -although experienced and talented- run around like headless chickens, plot (if there is one) is full of holes, and jokes are devoid of taste and wit. Do not see it under any circumstances, even if your life depends on it. Seriously.

Sinan Cetin is a commercial director. He directs commercials about all sorts of things: Candy, Banks, Cellular Phones. And he is mostly good at what he does. Yet when he lengthens his work over 3-5 minutes, it all starts going terribly wrong. Imagine watching a commercial for over an hour. Of course, it's not that horrible, but horrible still. In one way, he is similiar to Jerry Bruckheimer, without the imagination and co-ordination.

Komser Sekspir is one of his better works. It's certainly not as bad as Bay E or Propaganda. Yet even that is thanks to the magnificent preformances of Kadir Inanýr and Okan Bayülgen, two actors that I usually extremely dislike. Yet, just like all Cetin's other movies, it has little, in fact no cinematic worth, neither does it manage to bring anything new. True, the movie definetly has some hilariously funny parts, but it does not go above that. I guess the normal audience will absolutely love the movie, as it is the equilevent of say, Armageddon, in a twisted way. For the more intellectual watcher though, it will give nothing than a few light moments and some good acting. Go watch Yilmaz Erdogan's Vizontele instead.

Komser Sekspir is the story of a tough police chief, who learns that his only daughter is ill with leukemia, and will die very soon. The only dream of the girl is to play Snow White on the stage. The chief wovs to make her dream come true. He arranges the people he has taken under surveillance in the police station.They are a prostitute, a mafia leader, a young homeless boy, and another homeless, drug dealer Tatu (Okan Bayulgen) who has been a famous child star in the past, but now totally forgotten. The police chief, introduces these people to his daughter, as the local actors, and they begin rehearsals in the police station. This will change their lives forever. The movie achieves to be very funny and very sensitive at the same time. Especially, it is a great pleasure to watch Okan Bayulgen. Shortly after Hemso, where he plays an eastern villager, he now plays a marginal character, a city slicker, amazingly. His mimics, accent, tone of his voice are perfect, creative and impressive. I enjoy too much watching him and impatiently wait for his new ones.

KEY BAYULGEN MOMENT Absolutely the last scene, where Tatu plays a part from his old child-star days, but unexpectedly, an audience remembers him, The Little Hayati, and he is greeted with applause of the all audience. Bayulgen wonderfully reflects the feelings of that moment and I watch this movie over and over again only for this scene.

The problem in Turkish cinema has always been lack of nice scenarios that are not overwhelmed with cliches. In the last few years this trend seems to disappear with the appearance of talented people and successfully produced movies with a nice plot and good scenario covering a wide spectrum of topics. "Salkim Hanim", "Vizontele", "Dar alanda kisa paslasmalar", "Hersey guzel olacak"... I consider Komser Sekspir part of this wave. The plot is original and the script is well written. The performances are good, and the cinematography is one of the best that I have seen in Turkish movies. Sinan Cetin did a nice job of directing; the movie flows nicely and easily. I think this is one of his best works. Although not perfect, Komser Sekspir is definitely worthwhile to see.

Its very fashionable to bash Cetin's career after his early seminal works "Cirkinler de Sever" and "Cicek Abbas". But I think he's redeemed himself somewhat over the recent years with "Propaganda" and this film.

"Komser Sekspir" successfully plays upon Kadir Inanir's "tough guy" image juxtaposing it with a loving father's sensitivity. Then you have some great comedic turns from the supporting cast especially Okan Bayulgen (as a washed-up child actor), Ozkan Ugur and Mujde Ar.

That said, I'm not entirely sold on the ending Why do so many Turkish comedies have to have a sad or bittersweet ending ? There are also a few minor character inconsistencies. Why does the head of the "European human rights commission" have an American accent? Additionally, Pelin Batu despite a great screen presence, seems a little too old to play a schoolgirl (granted she was 22 when it was made).

All in all, I greatly enjoyed "Komser Sekspir" and I recommend you watch it.