Dondurmam Gaymak

Since I don't have the heart to harshly criticize these small-budget movies (especially if they give social messages with a social content) as well as I cannot eliminate my emotional attachment to them, I won't be harsh on this one either, but I have a few notes...

First of all there is a serious problem of 'accent'. Since they employed the public of Mugla towns as actors and their accent is different than those who speak clear Turkish, and probably they didn't give enough time for actor instructors to train these people in terms of diction etc., while watching the movie Turkish spectators had hard time to clearly understand the dialogs. Even just because of this, many jokes were missed. If this different accent were to be used, the lines had to be spoken more clearly and slowly...

The first half of the movie, due to the fact I explored above, was away from being engrossing. If the story is based on such a social content and such a small interesting event, there had to be included more elements to attach the spectators to the movie and to be gripping.

After watching the movie I told myself "I wish they had reshot the first half all over again" because it's obvious that it took time for actors to get used to their roles, to adaptate themselves to the movie. For example the wife's mimics and gestures during her fights with the ice cream seller in the first 30 minutes were not satisfying. She looked like she was just waiting for her turn to speak, ignoring what her husband was talking about, and she was in a lack of appropriate response in her facial movements; which tore her link to naturalism.

We all know that it's the hardest thing to train kid actors, especially if they have never seen a camera before and all of a sudden they are in a big movie having big parts in it! I must say that they all managed it well! I can't forget the look on Kamil's face and his voice, his perfect toning while he confessed that he stole the ice cream. He really did give the emotion well.

Turan Ozdemir is really very successful, I congratulate him.

However the movie is not capable of being a nominee for Oscar. Even Yuksel Aksu himself was not expecting the movie to make such a big scene in the country. He is surprised with the great attention it obtained. Nevertheless, considering how much labour and how great effort the crew spent for this movie, in addition to the crucial message it gives, we all have to congratulate them and celebrate it's success. The struggle of a very few directors, writers and thinkers in Turkey is deeply worth being proud of.

This film was made in a small city of Turkey with nearly all non-professional casting but with the great wish and effort of cast and director, now it is too close to be a nominee to Oscar from Turkey in "Best foreign language film of the year" category. We really laughed a lot as watching it. It is about a man who gains money by selling ice-cream. He makes his ice-cream in his own so he is in a war with other ready-made ice-cream companies. One day his ice-cream car is stolen and he thinks that other ice-cream company made it to prevent him from earning money but in fact the situation was not like that and his adventures starts...In my opinion you don't lose time if you watch it.

I'll try not to repeat what others have said. I liked this film, though I am not sure if anyone outside Turkey can like it as much as a Turk or someone familiar with rural Turkish culture. There are several reasons for this: First of all, I made a point of watching the film with English subtitles, and of course, the subtitles were not perfect, but at times they were confusing or too simplistic. Second of all, the juxtaposition of religious beliefs with overtly sexual scenes intended to be funny maybe a commentary on the conflicting identities secular Turks feel and live with, but left me a bit confused. Perhaps this could have been executed a little better and was done very well with the more subtle contradictions (or shall we call them adaptations of everyday life with religious and secular beliefs?) as a previous comment highlighted the men hiding their alcohol upon hearing the call for prayer. Several things to note: Baba Zula did the music for the film (the original songs), which I really liked. The drink of choice in the film is raki (ouzo) and anise-based alcohol that becomes cloudy white when diluted with water, therefore often referred to as "lion's milk" in Turkey (for Turkish men suppose they are like lions? But, of course!) As for things I really did not like in the film: I felt that ALL women in the film were screaming bitches! Mothers to their sons, wives to their husbands... The screaming was, I guess, meant to be funny and at times the driving force behind our hero's misery, but my experience with Turkish women in places like Mugla is far from what is portrayed here. Of course, the film does not have to be realistic, but I found this aspect to be very annoying. And the things I really liked: The location is beautiful. I would like to see more and more films made somewhere other than Istanbul. Mugla is such a beautiful setting. Beautiful mosque (classic blue/white tile embellishments), beautiful beaches, the winding roads, the river... Made me homesick (for a moment...) Also, the inclusion of two characters in the film, the corn-on-the-cob salesman and the newspaper-man (who is physically challenged) on the beach was interesting, if not, again, a part of the layered commentary on the socio-economic aspects of life in Turkey. Will there be a sequel about a salep salesman?!

I walk out of very few movie screenings and this movie managed to become one of those that I couldn't bear to watch any longer. As far as the awards it won goes, the ones awarded by Turkish festivals are not credible in my opinion. My only explanation for the Queens festival award was to think that somehow a layer of comedy was "gained in translation" as the subtitles helped distract attention from the horrendous performances.

At the beginning of the screening I attended, the presenter briefly talked about the history of Turkish cinema and at one point mentioned that early Turkish cinema was appropriately named "stage cinema" since many of the filmmakers and actors involved were people from the theater scene.

Ironically, this movie falls right into that category. English speakers reading subtitles may think that Turkish is a naturally loud language and attribute all the yelling in the movie to that, but observant native commentators will immediately notice that all the actors are performing with exaggerated loud voices. You could attribute this to the amateur nature of all actors, but the biggest source of "yelled-out-dialog" is the main character, played by the only professional actor in the movie. Not surprisingly his background is in theater. My guess is that in response to his loud delivery of lines, all other amateur actors raised their voices as well, hence turning the whole movie into a series of unnatural performances.

Put on top of all of this a storyline that develops at a snail's pace, you get an extremely boring movie.

I have to say I also have a personal problem with Turkish movies that depict entirely rural life with shallow uneducated characters. Ever since "Zugurt Aga", one of the best Turkish movies ever made, Turkish filmmakers seem to be not able to avoid the appeal of the rural part of the country. This is only interesting in small doses and if it is as beautifully orchestrated with excellent writing and directing as in Zugurt Aga. Most often, however, it is extremely boring and frankly somewhat embarrassing to native "urban" Turks. Rural communities make up a neglected, undereducated part of the country, and while this provides good material for comedy, it comes at a huge cost to Turkey's image.

A western audience member whose only exposure to Turkey is this movie will undoubtedly think that Turkey is like Afghanistan. I wish filmmakers would realize this and let go of their passion for the stories of the "rural man" and stay loyal to the majority of the country, who live in cities that put metropolitan areas in Europe to shame.

Turkish television and documentary director Yüksel Aksu ("Büyük Yalan" & "Bir Dilim Aşk") calls upon his misspent youth as apprentice to an ice cream salesman to good use for this quirky comedy which won awards at film festivals in Ankara, Istanbul and Queens and took an unappreciated trip to the Academy Awards selection committee.

Independent ice-cream salesman Ali (Turan Özdemir) tours the villages of Muğla Province on Turkey's Aegean coast on his new motorbike touting his wares from a trailer, but when the bike and trailer go missing he blames the big multinationals and goes out to seek revenge unaware that it has in fact been taken by a local gang of mischievous boys.

Local lad made good Turan Özdemir puts in a near hysterically distressed and dishevelled central performance at the head of a cast of non-professionals which includes memorable turns from a long-suffering Gulnihal Demir, youngster İsmetcan Suda and a host of local characters including Nejat Altinsoy, Recep Yener, Metin Yildiz and Arap Fevzi.

The Ankara International Film Festival Most Promising Director awards winning filmmaker has crafted a wonderful piece of whimsical entertainment from his youthful misadventures which, with the assistance of acting coach Mehmet Ali Alabora, is brought to life by a non-professional cast in a mode true to the director's routes as a documentarian.

"A bit of insanity solves everything!"