Karadayi

The first time I started Karadayi was three years ago, I watch two episodes on YouTube and stopped because I thought it was too slow... then three years later, it showed up on my Netflix recommendations. I was at a different place in my life and I started watching it again.. and lo and behold, I couldn't stop! I binge watched the 93 episodes that were on Netflix in two months (because I work for a living).. and I was left wanting more! I needed to see how it ended. So I looked and looked till I was able to find Seasons 2 and 3 on another source. I loved how the series took time to develop the characters, and how those characters changed throughout the series. Some even transformed from annoying to stellar. What I realized is that by the end of the series, I knew each and every character so well that I could anticipate their next move. And I knew the streets of Mahir's neighborhood.. where the bakery was, where the Kara shoe shop was, where the indoor bazaar was and most of all, I looked forward to Mahir and Feride's rendezvouz in the beautiful and quaint Cay Bahcese. I also loved how characters weren't just good or evil.. they were given context.. you knew why each character was the way they were. And when one of them overcame a difficult life choice, or came to a realization, you cheered. The story starts as a murder.. Mahir Kara's father, a shoemaker in Istanbul, is framed for a murder and Mahir goes undercover as a law clerk on his father's case to prove his father innocent. While undercover he falls in love with the Judge in charge of his father's case. But as the series progresses, you see that its more than just a murder.. that the frameup is a result of corruption in the system.. and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Along the way, over the course of the 3 plus years that is the timeframe of the series, you meet the Kara family. You go through their trials and tribulations as they struggle to prove their father's innocence and you witness a love story unlike any you have ever seen. Every woman should be loved the way Mahir loves Feride, and every man should be loved the way Feride loves Mahir. Their love is mature, self sacrificing and has withstood the test of time and tragedy. Only the first season of the series focuses on the murder trial, but the other two seasons bear out the fruits of the investigation that Mahir along Feride have conducted along the way. Quotes like "As long as the sun comes up, and we open our eyes, we hold on to hope." may seem cliche, but you will remember their true meaning as you watch the tribulations of the Kara family.. And new quotes like "If I don't burn myself, if you don't burn yourself, if we don't burn ourselves, how can there be light in the darkness?" will forever be ingrained in your memory as you face the notion of righteousness vs power in your every day life. I can honestly say that Karadayi gave me a whole new perspective on life, family and justice. I highly recommend it.

Reading some of the others' comments confirms for me that unfortunately world-wide audiences of a particular country's screen industry forget to drop their own cultural spectacles for another pair for the vastly different sensibility that is conveyed - here Turkey. Also to realise that these dizi are a unique format. An English speaking 'westerner' just doesn't 'get it' always. Many 'southern-Europe-to-middle-eastern' ways of thinking are vastly different. The under-pinning of secular Islam is very enlightening, as fans who view a lot of this genre can attest; so much of that culture relates so well to the best life values. (Yet often there is no overt 'religiousness', bar the plain rituals of funeral and wedding.) It's so good to get a feel for all of these things. Marshall-ah! The family table; the emphasis on healthy eating, the daily courtesies, the patterns expected in the 'coupling' department, the tactile affection commonplace between siblings and family members,

Story-telling is so embedded, poetry is generally known and treasured and metaphor and allegory are everywhere in this part of the world, and in Karadayi. In my country anyone who drew attention to themselves gently to launch into an often poetic story, and to have the company s/he's with (usually his family) attentively loving it would be an oddity. The Persian, Sufi, Aramaic, Turkish, Arab and all the 'stahns' have a huge store of narrative. Long-windedness can be a put-down summation. We have to start by knowing that these TV dizi are not 'soaps' - they are tele-novellas with 2 or 3 seasons separated by and summer breaks. For impatient Anglo-celtics they can be too drawn out, but for me as someone who just isn't held by today's trends Sci-fi, or CGi, GOT, Block-busters or fantasy, there is gold to be found in Turkish drama. The ease of incorporating passion, sensory delight, sweet verbal exchanges perfectly expressed in ease of owning emotion and poetic sweetness. The de-sensitised "West' calls these attributes cheesy, cliche - sadly.

The technical expertise in Karadayi is to die for, settings, location always real (not parked out like the US/UK ones can be) - costumes perfect etc. Karadayi just won me over right at the start; amazing to see a 1970s setting in perfect detail; dial telephones, woolen overcoats, flared pants, snall family shops, tweed women's professional suits, non-skyhigh heels, American imported cars. I couldn't fault any of these aspects. And I'm surprised that no other comment has rejoiced in this. (No cellphones interrupting every 5 minutes as they do in the large number of contemporary urban popular dizi!).

There seems to an endless supply of gorgeous looking people in the cast but also the ordinary and unprepossessing. Kenan Irmilioglu is of charismatic looks, is tall and imposing with his co-star Bergutor Kolar a tall actor also, a perfect foil for her co-lead. Mahir is too noble by far perhaps, given as he is, to fiery anger often causing trouble. Cetin Tekendor is a veteran 'older person' with a 'centering' role in the story. But all the cast performs expertly. Netflix often start a sub-titled series off, but due to contract issues will often show only the 1st Season. The frustrated viewer must search for various server Groups ('Turkish Dramas with English subtitles' is a starting Google) which provide sub-titled versions which usually require a donation.

I give this series high praise - although I may find viewing all episodes for the full show's length a challenge as always there seems to be a too dense middle stage with more sub-plots and additional characters, adding twists and turns. But Karadayi has so much going for it it should be worth going the full distance.

My heart sings, cries, laughs, and warms as I watch this series. I find that I can not watch the American TV series as the modern producers seem to go for cheap sex, bad humor, and shallow content. My opinion may be viewed as being bias and general but as I compare the content, and the depth of the story and acting in Karadayi I can only say that it superior in every way. It successfully portrays real selfless love not just between the main two characters, Mahir and Feride but allow love for family, neighbors and friends. The characters, emotion, interaction with family all feel real and genuine.The love story and struggle has left me in tears many times. I look forward to coming home and spending sometime with these characters. Netflix customer service can provide no information on when or if the remaining series will be aired and so I wait with the hope that Netflix will stop streaming partial seasons of these foreign TV shows and either get all on the seasons and air them or not put them on the site for viewing; it is frustrating and annoying.

I loved this series. I don't speak Turkish, but I found a way to see it through all three seasons.

First, I loved the actors. All the principal actors were fantastic. The Kara family, Feride and her mother, the friends from the neighborhood, the other love interests, were all very believable. A few of the bad guys were over the top, but I guess the global audience loves seeing the bad boys being bad. Targut was kind of funny when he had his tantrums.

I thought the plot was well developed and had lots of interesting twists. I enjoyed the backstories of all the characters. I fell in love with the Kara family, especially the parents, with their love, strength, courage and poetic embrace of life.

The direction was good. The actors worked together seamlessly. All that emotion was pulled out of everyone. There were many beautiful romantic scenes. The director did not depend on cheap tricks, like showing the same events over and over, or holding onto facial expressions too long. The settings were interesting.

I binge watched season 1 subtitled in English on Netflix. The rich voices of the actors made it easier to read along and know what was going on. After season 1, I looked around YouTube for more English, but

just found a few scenes.

Then I found Resumen HD in Spanish. This became the Feride and Mahir show because they cut most of the other scenes that had other actors, keeping just enough to keep the plot together. There were things that I never did understand, like why Mahir's brother had a sudden change of opinion, but I still enjoyed watching the story to the end.

I feel a duty to share my feelings about Karadayı. I watched this series dubbed in Persian split in 350 episodes. I feel a close cultural background with this story especially the timeframe of its events in the 1970s. As a whole, the series look quite different in texture from almost every other series or movie I have ever watched in my life. It is very real. I am not a critique, but I am going to share what I could absorb from Karadayı:

1. I admire the great play by Kenan İmirzalıoğlu, Bergüzar Korel, Çetin Tekindor, Yurdaer Okur, and virtually all the cast. I can't point out any particular actor/actress. They are a team of professionals in one place. Kenan, for instance, can express a broad spectrum of feelings on his face. He can mimic, let's say, 15 shades of happiness, 16 shades of sadness, 17 shades of anger, combinations of them, as well as diverse shades of indifference, astonishing, and virtually any feeling in its right context without any exaggeration. In his extreme anger, Kenan can momentarily get a little bit hopeful and happy; and then resume to his previous level of anger. For example, anytime after getting good news about his father, Nazif, who he holds him in high regards, his face blows into cheers and happiness. I have never been able to feel the life as vivid as Kenan feels it!. He should be a gifted actor whose face muscles are richly innervated. Kenan has been excelling in his roles compared to his plays in the previous series. Same thing with Bergüzar. She can love you now and despise you next minute. She can be so flirting in this scene and so serious in the next scene. They both can cry anytime they want. Other main characters are also great players. I should also congratulate the Persian dubbers. They conveyed passion, love, kindness, anger, and every other feeling through their voices. You could easily tell when the character was determined or hesitant just by listening to their voices. Kenan has enjoyed many dubbers in his other series such as Ezel, but Mr. Nader Keymaram has done an extraordinarily superior dubbing job for Kenan in this series.

2. The directorship is simply GREAT! The way the scenes relate to each other and the story timeline is put together entices you to be impatient to watch the following scene or the next episode. I couldn't sleep enough just to watch it continuously, even 15 episodes in a row sometimes. Although the story could still be trimmed easily, the prolonged story is not a big deal, especially when moral lessons fill in the conversations.

The series depict a story that seems very real. I noticed some less real or less logical parts throughout the story, but they are infrequent and pleasantly forgivable. These less real scenes are just symbolic, used to narrate the message of the story, and don't affect the beauty of the whole thing.

There is a high fidelity in expressing the time of day (using dusk, the moon, and the newspaper boy) and time of year (using people's clothing, green plants, winter trees, snow, and people discussing weather).

3. The camera does a professional job. The camera captures the scenes virtually from any angle regardless the location, either a small room, on the street, on a hill, etc. The camera is just salient in three dimensions. It can move fast focusing in or out, descending or ascending based on the stress level of the scene. It can suddenly start to swirl vertically or horizontally if needed. It showed Mahir once he was sitting on his bed in the jail, leaning to wall behind, drown in his thoughts and banging his head slightly, slowly, and repeatedly to the wall. The camera, showing him from his side 90 degrees turned, as if he is banging is head to the ground, to entrain your empathy with his deep sorrow. The camera does a lot of subtle tricks in every episode. I wish I were a cinema critic to pick all its tricks. But the ones I can notice, help me to feel the fragrance of the scenes better. The light helps the camera to emphasize the feelings of the characters much better.

4. The music is from a great Turkish composer, Toygar Işıklı. I didn't know him before, but I am addicted to some soundtracks such as Ateşe Yürümek, Ölüme Gülümse (İdam Sehpası), Elimi Tut, and Benden Kaçış Yok (Turgut). I should appreciate his choices of the old songs including but not limited to Sensiz Saadet Neymiş (by Yaşar Güvenir), Kıskanıyorum (by İnci Çayırlı), Unutama Beni (by Esmeray), Geri Dönülmez Bir Yoldayım (by Neşe Karaböcek), Sensiz Kaldığım Geceler (by Şecaattin Tanyerli)

In summary, Karadayı is the best series I've ever watched. I laughed and cried with the characters. I was just stuck to the chair, hungry to watch next episodes. I wish it never ended. I will watch it again next summer.