Dag

From a technical standpoint, 'The mountain' ('Dag') is pretty great. The filming locations provide us with outstanding natural beauty to enjoy with image quality that is crisp and clear. Sound design is likewise pristine. Blood effects and makeup, wardrobe, and props all look good. I think the chief actors are fine. I also admire the core concept of the film: Two soldiers, at odds with one another, are forced to work together when a routine mission goes far astray under adverse conditions high on a mountain.

I admit I was curious to watch in no small part because the root premise reminded me, superficially, of the 'Star Trek: Deep Space 9' episode 'The ascent' - two generally opposed individuals, working in common cause. With that central focus in mind, I think writer-director Alper Çaglar guides his small primary cast into some neatly arranged scenes, and captures some particularly swell shots. If 'The mountain' were tightly focused on the active narrative, it would have benefited greatly.

Unfortunately, that's not what we actually get. The film's original score is frankly over the top, adding grossly dramatic flair that's overwrought and overbearing. Frequent flashback scenes provide unnecessary background for protagonists Oguz and Bekir in past moments that are dubious at best, maudlin at worst, and mostly just awkward or counterproductive. Dialogue commonly includes absolutely superfluous, tasteless homophobic slurs, and where it isn't concentrated on the plot atop the mountain it broadly echoes the same tawdry slant. The rare kernel of profundity that 'The mountain' has to impart is lost, subsumed amidst gaudy embellishment and otherwise poor writing so garish as to be grotesque.

As if all this weren't bad enough, the picture is saturated through and through with grandstanding so horridly heavy-handed as to be arrogant. Patriotism! National pride! Service! Army, hoo-rah! Such blatantly kitschy pretension would be direly unwelcome and deservedly criticized in a Hollywood blockbuster; for a different country's military to be the apple of a feature's eye is no better. A few key words come to mind, like haughty, condescending, stuffy, uptight, smug, and obnoxious. Blech!

It's a shame, really. 'The mountain' could have been a short film of certainly no more than half its final length of 90 minutes without meaningfully sacrificing any substance. That short could easily be a plainspoken survival thriller - further cut or simply revise a great deal of dialogue, do some pick-up shots focused on the core premise - presto, a winner. That short could also easily maintain the spirit of what the full-length feature represents; careful writing, editing, sequencing, and overall consideration would have allowed for much more sparing use of flashback scenes to be significantly more impactful, and for what wisdom the screenplay has to convey to readily flourish.

But that hypothetical short is not what 'The mountain' is. The execution is dressed up so ostentatiously as to be vulgar. The fundamental story beats of the active plot are great, and the technical craft is on point; for this, I wish I could say I like the movie more than I do. Yet almost everything else is questionable in the least, and emphatically dispensable at worst, making me wonder I'm not being too generous as it is in how I regard the final product.

If you can't get enough of go-getter, chest-beating, jingoistic military bravado, and you don't care about how overblown or tacky it may be - well done, this is the movie for you. For anyone else, I can't think of a situation in which I'd recommend 'The mountain.'

It had potential. That potential was wasted.

Great realistic movie between Turkish soldiers and PKK Terrorist

A very good film combining excitement and emotional depth at the same time. It is made with a different style to most Turkish films where the happenings are the most important thing than the style or melodrama. It can be considered American in the way the story occurs. Ufuk Bayraktar gives an incredible performance, you forget you are watching a film when he is on the screen and this helps to give importance to the bad situation they are about to go through. The director is talented and he can play with your mental states easily. One moment you laugh, and the next you cry, and even though the film is smaller than usual in hits you if you can empathy with characters.

In recent years Turkish cinema produces some very different and important films proving that the entire film sector here is going in a different direction with its next generation people. This is one of those films totally different than what we are used to, and very ambitious in what it tries to do. 9 out of 10

The theme of the story is very good, and the technique of expression is also very good. However, the integrity of the story, the lack of background introduction, the success of the film in showing the fighting quality of the special forces, but the lack of attention to the local humanitarian crisis, and the inability to build a great mountain of spiritual quality. The inner play is very rich, but it's easy for people to play by interspersed memories!.

Full Review on my blog max4movies: Dag is a good example for an efficient war movie, as only few locations, characters, and action scenes are featured. By creating an impressive scenery, the movie does give the viewer a sense of the dread the two main characters are facing. It's basically an independent movie, shot on a low budget with a small crew, and amateur actors; the lack of production values often shows and the actors often don't carry the more complex scenes. Generally, though, the characters are authentic and relatable, and the dialogues are mostly well-written. Together with the amazing scenery and the decent pacing, this makes for a worthwhile experience. However, the viewer should keep the nationalist perspective in mind. Read my full review on my blog movie-discourse.