Golden Age Exuberance
The first two Turkish films date back to 1917 and are the work of the writer, journalist and director Sedat Simavi. Now lost, why mention them? The Spy inaugurates a long tradition of spy films, from Journey to the Land of Fear (Norman Foster, 1943) to The Mole (Tomas Alfredson, 2011) via The Cicero Affair (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952), which, with relish, will turn Turkey and Istanbul in particular into a veritable nest of spies - which still seems to be the case if recent events are anything to go by. Most of Turkey's pre-war film production is the work of one man, Muhsin Ertuğrul, who cut his teeth in German theaters. The films he left behind bear the scars of this. Three titles of glory to his credit: in 1931 he signed the first talking film of Turkish cinema, In the Streets of Istanbul, directed a Greek-Turkish co-production, The Wrong Way (1933) in the hope of bringing together these two sworn enemies, and then a final film, The Weaver (1953), which confirmed him in his status as an indefatigable pioneer, since it was the first Turkish film in color. The Turkish film industry was then in full expansion, taking advantage of the fiscal measures taken in its favor by the government in 1948. Comedies, melodramas, peasant sagas, patriotic films are the genres in vogue among an abundant production. Few films initially broke away from convention: Ömer Lütfi Akad's first attempt, Strike the Whore (1949), not without a touch of naivety, signaled a singular inspiration by telling the story of a schoolteacher who is confronted with religious fanaticism when she arrives in a small Anatolian village. In the Name of the Law (1952), a crime film that takes over the streets of Istanbul, The Law of the Border (1966) with Yılmaz Güney as an Anatolian bandit, an archetype of the cinema of the time, or a beautiful melodrama, My Public Beloved (1968), with the famous Türkan Soray, testify to the variety of his inspiration and the important place he occupies in Turkish cinema. Other early successes include Three Friends (Memduh Ün, 1958), a charming chronicle of life on the Bosphorus, and The Endless Road (Duygu Sagiroglu, 1965), about the broken dreams of young people who come to Istanbul in search of work. A love song to the Sublime Gate, Oh, Beautiful Istanbul (1966) paints an enchanting portrait of an Istanbul that no longer exists. The film is just one of the many hits by the prolific Atıf Yılmaz, alongside My Beloved with the Red Scarf (1978) or The Sacrifice (1979), inspired by a news story that took place in the village of Kargın in eastern Anatolia. Another essential figure is Metin Erksan, who blows the idealized image of rural society to smithereens in films where the characters are afflicted with a kind of possessive fury. A Summer Without Water (which won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 1964) tells how a peasant appropriates a spring to irrigate his only land, The Well (1968) narrates the sickly obsession, to the point of irreparability, of a man for a woman who refuses to accept him( Süreyya Duru'sBedrana in 1974, which is in the same tragic and pastoral vein, is a great success of the decade that followed). It is a fetishistic and fantastical passion that serves as a pretext for Time to Love (1966), set in the Princes' Islands, a style that brings him closer to the modernist wave that was then raging in Europe and the world. That he signed a photocopy of The Exorcist simply transposed to the Muslim world with Şeytan (1974) heralds at least as much the decline of the production to come as that of its inspiration. Indeed, the Yeşilçam, named after the district of Istanbul that housed most of the Turkish studios at the time, was then churning out more than anecdotal films, counterfeits of Hollywood films or erotic films - a rarity in the Muslim world.
Sticking to your guns
But the director who truly puts Turkish cinema on the map outside its own borders is Yılmaz Güney, who is known as the Ugly King. His pessimism and attention to the misery of the world shine through in Hope (1970). Yol, la permission de Serif Gören, co-directed from prison by Güney - accused of killing a judge - before he managed to escape to France, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1982, a first for a Turkish film, and was internationally acclaimed, in which Güney's situation plays a significant role: this harsh and beautiful film intertwines the stories of several prisoners, who are given permission to return to their families, only to come up against the archaisms that are still deeply rooted in Turkish society. After the military coup of 1980, the film was logically banned in Turkey. Filmmakers continue to emerge despite the constraints placed on them by the government, such as Ömer Kavur. Secret Face (1991), adapted from a novel by Orhan Pamuk, is the pinnacle of his work: it is a strange love story, steeped in Sufi tradition, which has no real equivalent in Turkish cinema. Ali Özgentürk's films, such as Hazal (1980), are marked by a magical realism that also has something new about it, and they give prominence to female characters who struggle with old tribal traditions. An acerbic satire of Turkish society at the time, Cuisine de riches (Basar Sabuncu, 1988) is excellent filmed theater. In 1990, the success ofAbdullah de Minye (Yücel Çakmakli, 1990) launched a trend of films advocating the practice of a rigorous Islam. A sequel was shot the same year. Competing with television and American cinema - most cinemas are owned by American majors - local film production weakened dramatically in the 1990s, which does not prevent a new generation of filmmakers, still very active today, from keeping the flame alive.
Regain of form
Reha Ederm's career got off to an early start, but would not really take off until the turn of the century. Zeki Demirkubuz was already ruminating on his existential anguish in C Blok (1994), an almost prison-like description of a Stamboulian suburb, before directing Innocence (1997), a tortured Turkish classic of the 1990s that doesn't pull any punches.
He would give it a sort of prologue in 2004 with Kader. 1996 was a particularly fruitful year: Eskiya le bandit (Yavuz Turgul) kept a popular and competent cinema alive, while Dervis Zaim established himself as a little master of the thriller with Somersault in a Coffin, penniless but not devoid of black humor. Above all, Nuri Bilge Ceylan launched a career with Kasaba (1996), and went on to win the Palme d'Or for Winter Sleep in 2014. His austere, contemplative work, showered with critical praise, gives an almost physical impression of the landscapes it surveys.
Among others, Istanbul under the snow in Uzak (2002), summer in Kaş on the Mediterranean coast and winter in Ağrı to the east in Les Climats (2006), chronicle of a breakup. Le Poirier sauvage (2018) sees his hero return to Çanakkale, his hometown, and confirms his place as a statuesque author. In Les Herbes sèches (2023), his lead actress, Merve Dizdar, wins the Prix d'interprétation féminine at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023. Not only did Aller vers le soleil (directed by Yeşim Ustaoğlu) confirm this upturn in 1999, it was also the first film in the history of Turkish cinema to dare tackle the Kurdish question head-on. A revitalized economy saw a tenfold increase in the production of commercial films and series, particularly comedies. They are a major export success, in Germany for example, where the Turkish community is large, but especially elsewhere in the East. Among them Atiye (2019) recounts the adventures of a young archaeologist, but the list is too long. Bartu Ben (2019) by the talented Tolga Karaçelik, about the daily life and neuroses of an awkward gay man in his thirties in Istanbul. Specializing in series, Onur Ünlü's Sen Aydinlatirsin Geceyi (2013) is an original black-and-white fantasy set on the shores of the Aegean Sea. Many war films and action series are spectacular, unabashed propaganda. Fig Jam (Aytaç Agirlar, 2011) is a romantic drama set in Istanbul that adopts an unorthodox European point of view. The more personal films are not to be outdone, and Özcan Alper has followed in Ceylon's footsteps with Sonbahar (2008), which, slow as it is, offers a magnificent glimpse of the mountains bordering the Black Sea, or Le Temps dure longtemps (2011), a journey alongside a musicology student exploring the Hakkâri and Diyarbakır regions in the south of the country.Des temps et des vents (2006), depicting three children rebelling against adult authority in a small village, Kosmos (2010), a mystical tale shot in Kars, not far from the Armenian border, or Jîn (2013), which sees a young Kurdish woman abandon her fighting clothes, by Reha Erdem, are all singular, visually meticulous, sometimes disconcerting films that aim for a kind of cosmic poetry. Lately, Turkish cinema has been in the news with Mustang (2015) by Franco-Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven, the umpteenth but refreshing manifesto for female emancipation in an often conservative country. Psychological thriller(Sarmasik by Tolga Karaçelik, 2015), generational chronicle(Majority, 2010), black comedy(Vivian by Durul Taylan and Yagmur Taylan, 2009), mountain western of consummate slowness(Derrière la colline by the aptly named Emin Alper in 2012): Turkish cinema is not short of talent of all kinds. We can only hope that these films will be more readily available on our screens.
On the series side
Over the past decade, the country has enjoyed unprecedented success in the field of TV series. So much so, in fact, that in 2018, a European study ranked Turkey second in the world, just behind the American giant, for the number of series exported worldwide. This new empire is called "Istanbulywood". Today, Turkish productions are exported to over 140 countries worldwide, generating a financial windfall of over $300 million (compared with just $10 million in 2008). This success story can be explained by the enthusiasm of Arab and South American countries for Turkish offerings. The same is true of the Balkan countries. The success of these Turkish "tele-romances" lies in the values advocated and the messages distilled in each soap opera: living free (and chaste) love while taking into account traditional and societal values, values common to all countries with a Muslim majority. Turkish audiovisual fiction has a bright future ahead of it..
