Çogunluk

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!

Turkish cinema produces fine films and this is one of them.It shows a patriarchal family structure in which all members are alienated and no real communication exists.They exchange messages but the lines of the father cannot be crossed no matter how this makes the other members unhappy.Father is violent corrupt disrespectful and racist as we see from different manifestations of the film.Mother seems to understand her predicament but she is reluctant to take any action and accepts her fate.Son has an opportunity that is given to him via his relationship with the Kurdish girl to see his life from a different perspective but he don't have the education the support from friends and family and he is a coward.So in the end the abused son becomes the abuser towards the workers because he don't know nothing else to do, he reproduces his father.Th e irony on the socio-political level comes from the emancipatory call that comes from the Kurdish girl (the book that later is thrown away)to the modest but well off Turkish family.In other words a region which is backward economically socially compared to the rest of turkey.Maybe this is a hint that the Turkish government play a role for that situation.Excellent performances from all the actors.

I am so sorry because of seeing that film. It was totally unrealistic and it was a terrible representation of Turkish family composition and Turkish society. It is true that Kurdish people in Turkish society can be discriminated in some ways. However, there is another side of the coin, there are many places in Turkey in which Kurds and Turks live peacefully, they are friends, they are neighbors... In addition to the message of the film about discrimination to Kurdish people, it was an unrealistic representation of Turkish family. This kind of family cannot be and shouldn't be generalized to all Turkish families, even it is not a good representation of mid-upper class families. There is a great change in Turkish family composition from past to today. So this film doesn't account the change in the society. From my perspective, this film is just a snap shot of a minority in Turkey in terms of family and style of living. There is a much bigger picture when you look from backstage to Turkish life. And the filmmaker either fails to capture that bigger picture or prefers to look at from a micro perspective on purpose. Result is a really bad representation of Turkey unfortunately. I do support that there must be films about discrimination in Turkey. However, being realistic is the most essential part of making a film with social messages. Instead of having films that perpetuate hate within a society, I really wish to see films that give peace messages at the end even though it gives a real picture of discrimination.

"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.