Although the end credits say that the story has only been "inspired" by Dostoyevsky"s NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND, the plot follows the source-text relatively closely. The central character Muharrem (Engin Gunaydin) becomes involved in a dinner party given in honor of Cevat (Serhat Tutumluer) who is about to go to Istanbul to receive an award. Muharrem hated his friends when he was younger, but decides to meet them at the appointed location. They fail to tell him that the time has been changed to eight instead of seven, so he arrives early. He gets into an argument with the four after a short time, declaring to all his hatred of society. In the end he goes off on his own to sing a song in the otherwise empty restaurant.
Following the novel once more, Muharrem encounters Fahise (Nergis Öztürk) a young prostitute with whom he goes to bed. He confronts her with a savage image of her future; but she ends herself enthralled by his seemingly poignant grasp of society's ills. He gives her his address and leaves. They re-encounter at the end; he curses her and takes back everything he said to her, saying he was, in fact, laughing at her and reiterates the truth of her miserable position. Near the end of his painful rage he wells up in tears after saying that he was only seeking to have power over her and a desire to humiliate her. He begins to criticize himself and states that he is in fact horrified by his own poverty and embarrassed by his situation. Fahise realizes how pitiful he is and tenderly embraces him.
Director Zeki Demirkubuz"s desire to follow the source-text so closely emphasizes his debt to Dostoyevsky - which was also evident in BEKLEME ODASI (2003). Both writers are interested in the futility of existence, where people end up doing the same thing every day to little or no effect. In YERALTI Muharrem is a civil servant sitting in an office trying to do his job, but finds that life has nothing to offer him. Inspired by nature programs on television, he conceives an alternative existence where he imagines himself as a predatory animal, cleaning itself before going in for the kill. Through a series of voice-overs we learn what his true feelings actually are, and how radically they differ from his actual behavior in front of others. In the end, however, he realizes that this alternative role is nothing but a sham, a way of diverting him from the essential meaninglessness of existence. Left alone in his apartment on a gray, cold morning, he becomes aware of this truth.
The film contains several of Demirkubuz's familiar stylistic devices designed to draw our attention to Muharrem's plight - the long shots focusing on his side profile, the point of view shot showing him traveling through an apparently never-ending tunnel in a taxi, and the blurred point of view shots that reduce Turkey's capital city into a threatening phantasmagoria of grays, blues and blacks. Never has the city looked so threatening or uninviting.
