Adem'in Trenleri

An imam comes to a small village in the western part of Turkey with his wife and daughter. The residents of the village -mostly train station workers- hire the imam for the holly month of Ramadan. The story tells how the small community of the village intervene with the imam's life through first by gossiping among themselves and then by direct involvement. The story also tells the heart-warming friendship of Adem - one of the worker's 6-7 years son - and Imam's daughter. This is one of the best village-based Turkish movie that I have seen (out of 6-7 movies). The acting of the children are superb, the others also act satisfactorily. The directing and the scenario are also strong.

This movie is one of the recent Turkish - village movies. Unfortunately, most of these movies take the religion aspect at the center, probably as a pre-condition of getting subsidy from Turkish Cultural Ministry. I would give this movie an 8 in isolation. However, the political(non-secular) impact on Turkish movies disturbs me and I subtract 1 because of that.

I really enjoyed this movie. I was quite taken by the scenery, the amazing photo and the skill among the actors. Nurgül Yeşilçay was stunning in her performance as Hacer, and I can't wait to see more of her in the future. This is truly a feel-good-movie, and it was nice to see something southern European/Middle Eastern for a change. It's too bad that their film-making seems to be very underestimated, I'm sure people would change their point of view if they were to lay hands on this precious Turkish artwork. Thumbs up for the children's performances (especially Adam), but I'd watch it over and over again for Nurgül's appearance only. She did a great job in the Turkish/German movie "Auf Der Anderen Seite" last year, so I wasn't surprised to see her doing an equally good job in "Adem'in Trenleri".