buktel

I would like Delon and Belmondo had come together for the second time at least ten years earlier. Then the action scenes would be not only more credible but more creative, too.

The story of the film is basically creative, but the action scenes take more than enough time while the real asset of the story (and of the film, too) was not the action but the relation of the three major characters. I would like to see much more scenes about the relations of the extraordinary characters and smart dialogs among them, that is, I would rather to enjoy the magnetism of the acting and personalities of the extraordinary triangle of Delon/Belmondo/Paradis than to watch the ordinary explosions, ordinary mafia guys, ordinary car chases, ordinary flying bullets and the other similarly ordinary trifles.

Delon and Belmondo must come together for a third time, and this time without waiting for ten years more. Yes it may be already late. But now is better than later or never.

Sener Sen is perfect. Meltem Cumbul plays not her film character but a crafty player playing her character. Timucin Esen is perfect. Director Yavuz Turgul's story seems like borrowed from Michael Apted's "Enough" (which starred Jennifer Lopez and script of which is written by Nicholas Kazan). Both "Gonul Yarasi" and "Enough" have the same storyline, in which an oppressed woman ill treated by her psychopathic husband runs away from him taking her (and his) child with her.

It may be said that there is no part for Sener Sen in "Enough". Well, there is no need for the part of Sener Sen in "Gonul Yarasi", either. Everything told and shown about the character Sen plays is just secondary and does not support the main plot of Gonul Yarasi. Yavuz Turgul could easily omit Sen's character from the story and better focus his camera on Cumbul and Esen relation. In that case, the character of Sümer Tilmaç would get a little larger and deeper and could include (only when necessary) Sen's part, too.

Although the name of Sener Sen is written on the top of the cast, although the camera sees him more frequently than any other character; "Gonul Yarasi" is essentially Cumbul's and Esen's story (the implied love between Sen and Cumbul is just a rifle which never fires in the story) and Sener Sen is just a helpless witness in it, unable to do anything to change the course and the finale of the main plot which is also the main plot of "Enough".

But in order to make justice towards Turgul, we must declare that despite the flaws of the plot (for example, the psychopathic husband wouldn't tolerate for one moment Sen's giving Cumbul shelter at his home and living together with her under the same roof) "Gonul Yarasi" is much better a film than "Enough" in many ways including credibility and artistic quality. COSKUN BUKTEL

I saw Michel Strogoff when I was just a little boy in fifties, at cinema Elhamra in Izmir. Its Turkish name was "Volga Mahkumlari" (The Prisoners of Volga). Later, I read the Turkish translation of the Jules Verne book which was published with the same title of the original book the film was based on. I remember the run and chase plot of the book better than the film's plot. The only things I remember of the film are its sad (maybe gloomy)atmosphere and Curd Jurgens who was captured by spies of the villain and was blinded with a red-hot iron stick. The sequence made such a strong impression on me that although I have forgotten almost all the other aspects of the film ("the events happen in Russia") I have never forgotten it.

I must have noticed the existence of Sylva Koscina who has been one of my boyhood idols, for the first time in Michel Strogoff. I have completely forgotten Koscina's image in Michel Strogoff but still remember her Playboy photographs shoving her naked in water.

It would just be a wonderful nostalgic pleasure if I could have a DVD of Michel Strogoff! COSKUN BUKTEL