Set in an unspecified medieval period, ULAK centers on Zekeriya, a doctor (Çetin Tekindor) who visits a village and begins to tell mysterious stories of the past, present and future to a group of children and adults. The stories focus on the power of God, the importance of remaining true to oneself and the need to overcome tyranny. The center of his tales is a crippled character Murad (Ömer Hüsnü Turat) who possesses some kind of spiritual power despite his disability.
Zekeriya's presence within the community immediately causes suspicion: what kind of power does he have over the children? For the village elders, accustomed to wielding their patriarchal power over their women and their offspring, he represents a subversive force, and therefore needs to be removed. The only snag is that he possesses the kind of resilience that is infectious - so infectious, in fact, that he encourages the children to resist their parents. Young Ferhat (Atakan Yağız) offers a case in point - despite his father's attempts to beat him into submission, he remains unbowed, and eventually departs with Zekeriya to a better world.
Part-fantasy, past religious epic, Çağan Irmak's film underlines the importance of being true to oneself, even if life's circumstances turn against you. This is way Zekeriya preaches, using his autobiographical experiences with Murad as an example. Tyrannies will never survive in a world whose inhabitants understand the existence of a higher power in whom they can trust. Such views are not only religiously important, they have an intimate bearing on contemporary politics. The film's ending is particularly satisfying, as the children and the believers go forth into a promised land, leaving the former tyrants and their families to die. ULAK is particularly harsh on those who simply follow popular sentiment without understanding anything about themselves or the societies they inhabit. They are at once the least intelligent yet most dangerous of people.
To be honest, some of the action is a little sentimental, adumbrating some of Irmak's later work such as THE SLEEPING PRINCESS (PRENSES'IN UYKUSU), especially towards the end of the the film when Zekeriye reveals the ending to his tale to the accompaniment of swirling violins on the soundtrack. There is also the question of the film's epigraph, dedicated to all children with the capacity to dream; on this view, Irmak suggests that all adults have somehow been corrupted and it is incumbent on the younger generation to create a better world. This might be true, but it suggests a view of childhood with its roots in European Romanticism rather than spirituality.
