Des bateaux d'écorce de pastèques

A very simple story with amateur casting can not impress me like this ever. It is about a passion of a two young people toward cinema, making their own projector with very primitive equipments. Their efforts are worth watching. Photography is perfect, every scene is a story itself, colored by the beautiful country side. Village and the villagers are so real that you get the impression as if you are watching a documentary about Turkish villages at the same time, showing the lifestyle, language, costumes, architecture, traditions, taboos and everything in a very lean way. A heartbreaking love story throws in a towel, very innocent but impossible because of the boundaries people set for their selves especially in Turkey. It makes you think how bright minds go in vein because of the lack of support or lack of facility. Fortunately imagination is all free. I am sure the filmmakers did not expect a box office, they put forth their hearts to display everything very sincerely and unreserved. Wish they can reach out the crowds.

A moving and brilliant film from Turkey with an amazing title that assumes a meaning by the end of it, this one opens with a melodious and melancholic tune that tugs at your heart. The camera slowly reveals to us a watermelon shop, its owner and the helper who is a young painter. And thus starts the poetic tale of our protagonist who is an aspiring filmmaker and a hopeless romantic. We follow Recep, the young lad, as he finds his first crush and battles against insurmountable odds to build a camera that can move images. Recep's passion for Cinema drives him on his quest to find out everything about the camera and his love for the ravishing beauty, Boncuk Yilmaz, keeps him busy in his daydreams. Life moves on, things happen, and the climax is tragic and heartbreaking - but the last few moments are reassuring and full of promises about the journey ahead. But what carries the film into the realms of greatness is the way it is made. Visually gorgeous, the film is soothing on the eyes, with the village, the town, the plains in between, everything shot in a vibrant tone. The architecture of the town becomes a part of the narrative, as does other inanimate things because Ulucay's careful usage of props is charming and quirky, and extremely smart. Any cinephile is bound to fall in love with this film, as it is a true tribute to the process of film-making - the camera building sequences are extremely well-done and made me fall in love with Cinema all over again. In a place and age where films were still considered taboo, the director captures the first effects of moving images on the village children, an old man and a local madman to great effect, yes, a tad melodramatic, but affecting nonetheless. Daily life is given a touch of magic with the beautiful characters and this is, I repeat, a heartfelt love letter to the great medium called Cinema.

Watermelons, boats, boats from watermelon rinds - clearly this is a film about childhood! About that special kind of childhood of the East or maybe of the Past!

In childhood every detail is full of meaning, full of amusement, the near future holds grand plans and dreams, in childhood myths can have very real appearances, and there are many many summer minutes to spend with your friends, on the dried meadows of the village or maybe on the imaginary sands of the coast...

A childhood in the East: where townsmen are too poor but have their pride, where they still pay a lot of attention and appreciate the small details, where life repeats its slow rhythms and the future is blissfully far away. In the East myths still can have very real appearances, and there are many many daily moments to spend enjoying the simple blessings of God while waving off the flies in the hot air, chatting with your watermelon customers, or taking a nap!

I should warn you that just like our childhood, the film has no specific finale, it ends unexpectedly, taken away by the circumstances. One day we realise it has been gone for some time already, while we had still so much more plans and business to do with it...!

A humble, monumental and so necessary memory of times that will one day pass, and places that will soon change! Ashkolsun arkadashlar!

Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds (Karpuz Kabugundan Gemiler Yapmak) is a most charming film out of Turkey. It follows a teenage boy, Recep, working as an apprentice for the local Happy Watermelon Man. His mother is evil (involved in some unexplained human-ear baking ring), but a nearby woman wants to take him under his wing. "Auntie" as he calls her, is somewhat flirtatious and very much weird. Recep has a crush on her eldest daughter, who resents him.

The youngest daughter is infatuated with Recep, who doesn't take her seriously.

On the side, Recep is also trying to build his own movie theatre with two friends. They've got the film, the wooden projector box, a light and lens. Now all they need is to find a way to manually move the film at 24 frames a second.

Boats is witty, wonderful and at times, weird. It's a what Cinema Paradiso would be if David Lynch directed it. It is not perfect. There is a lull about 2/3rds into the movie that is hard to ignore. But this is one of those rare smart films for the whole family.

The actual nice things in the movie are small details like the secret eating of the walnut by the elder sister,like the scene of epilepsy attack of Deli Omer...- In the beginning of the movie,there was a scene o a cat moving around a man crying which is shot totally incidentally,is making you feel good ,happy but not...and immediately after the dead man comes alive and you feel peculiar... During all the time,during all that childish love stories you actually expect the explanation of that coming back to life scene and it is explained actually in the end when Recep promises Deli Omer to bring alive his dead wife.