Ulak

the atmosphere. the architecture. the emotion. the words who becomes pillars. the image of wise story teller. and the magic in a not comfortable manner. a film who could be window to memories. or rediscover of pure story, from classic Oriental recipes. but, step by step, scene by scene, you discover it be more than charming introduction in mythical universe. but a parable who remains the perfect manner to describe the present as just one of forms of past. the expectation. the force of dream. the fear. and the curiosity. the challenge. and the bitter words. and, sure, the large slices of silence. a film who is more a window to a lost world than a fairy tale's exposure. because it reminds the roots of the life. and the importance of its values.

Another masterpiece from the one of most intellectual and creative directors of Turkey. Story is also by Irmak.

1- The incredible soundtracks that takes you away is by E.Reboutsika who won the World Soundtrack Award in 2006 by another Irmak movie "Babam ve Oglum" (My Father and My Son) 2- Cetin Tekindor presents one of the best actings I've ever seen. He paralyses the audience. Especially, the scene he begins to cry when he finishes his story and the children are talking about the Messenger they dream of.. 3- Story is very allegoric. No time and no place. And the presentation of this story is very original, since there are parts like "Dream of Ferhat", "Reality of Zekeriya", "Book of Mehmet" 4- Although lots of messages are given, the most emphasized is "The one who knows but keeps silence is as much guilty as the one who commits." In fact it seems to refer to the Military Regime started in 1980 and to the society that did not want to talk about it for years. Not only that, but also every society that stay silent against the evil kind. 5- The end is much more original. Story ends with "Dream of Saffet", which means it is your turn to dream about the end.

This film definitely has its own way of telling a story. While watching, it gives you the feeling of listening to a fairy tale, which I haven't felt for many years. I must admit that the film has religious implications, because of the story in the background, but they are not necessarily negative criticisms. By choosing children as the main audience in the "messiah story", this film separates itself from any other religious-story-telling films or books. The costumes, acting and conversations all have that fairy tale style as a whole. I see "hope" as the main theme of this film as "even an unrealistic hope can change people's lives". Please don't watch and judge this movie with your or others belief-defending opinions. It just shows the power of imagination. Also it is a good and a different step for Turkish cinema.

I am pretty sure Chagan Irmak was aware of the fact that the movie is completely different than what people was expecting. He is brave enough to discuss the issues like freedom of speech, military coups in his movies explicitly. But this time, he was indirect and he makes people to think. In most of the Turkish movies, it is a tradition to give the message in a direct way. But this makes Ulak special .. Irmak breaks those traditions. The photography, costumes are were great. Throughout the movie, I tried where/when the story takes place. What is their religion? I liked that disturbance in my mind. which make me to think and I enjoyed my mind trip!

First of all, the ''Turkish Cinema'' had produced the same things throughout. But this idea of making something different contrary to the meaningless, cheap movies of bad filmmakers is a very venturous business. I think that we owe Çağan Irmak therefore a debt, because his early work was ''Babam Ve Oğlum'', which was very successful in the box-office. Irmak has tried something at least but the transformation of the idea of telling a myth is done very bad to a movie. The development of the movie is very choppy, the characters are sketchy without any deepness, the music was predominantly weird and the overall performance of the actors were common to bad. But the biggest point is, that the movie was too theatrical. This attribute is not appropriated to cinema,you can find it in theaters. The director wanted to give the messages in a artless way, which made some scenes and the filmmaker funny. All in all it's a good try but nothing more...