alice-53456

Terrific dizi with exceptionally talented actors with, in the main roles, Cagatay Ulusoy as Sarp and Aras Bulut Iynemli as Mert, who both display a palette of emotions that is difficult to match. They complement each other marvellously in this mafia story/family drama. I really enjoyed the development of the characters from beginning to end, especially with the mirror events that were happening with their respective bosses. I have seen Ulusoy in more recent roles but it is in this particular one that I find him as most accomplished, because of the range of emotions he is able to project. The same can be said about Iynemli who is alternately playful, moving, cunning, romantic... Their talent is matched by other powerful actors such as Cetin Tekindor as Jelal, among others. The cinematography is also beautiful. I appreciated very much the meetings in dark alleys, underground passages in historic buildings, roof tops of interesting buildings, with dominant blue/grey colors, and Istanbul in the background. I do agree that there were some long stretches but this seems to be unavoidable in Turkish dizis that are over two hours long. This is does not prevent me from saying that it was one of the best dizis I watched in this genre.

I got hooked to this series very early on and did not get bored for a second during the philosophical exchanges for instance between Cuneyd (Mert Yazicioglu) and his psychiatrist, Levent (Ozcan Deniz) or the religious exchanges between Cuneyd and his uncle Sadi Hudayi (Erkan Avci). I appreciated the wonderful mother-daughter relationship between Meriem (Ozgu Namal) and Zeynep (Mina Demirtas), and also the touching relationship between Zeynep and Mira Alkanli (Esma Yilmaz), who is the same age, and whose goofiness added a light touch to the generally heavy atmosphere. I did not expect to root for Zeynep and Cuneyd but they turned out to be real soulmates who understood each other so well. A compelling element was also the relationship between the physics professor, Suave Alkanli (Serif Erol) and Zeynep. Secondary characters such as Birgul and Arif were charming too. I thought some of the women were a bit caricatural (especially Sadi's wife and daughter), and Hande Elkanli as a journalist was not very convincing but on the whole, the series was quite riveting and hope the second season will be as compelling.