Inan Temelkuran is a relatively new director(and brother of a famous leftist writer Ece Temelkuran) but his "Bornova Bornova" really has something to say in terms of cinematic language and so-called Turkish modern life... the movie takes place in a day in a city called Izmir(more specifically in Bornova) and it has a "really" realistic feeling which is something rare in Turkish cinema so just for this specialty we had to treasure it. in terms of this realistic way of story telling temelkuran seems very close to Lumet cinema in many ways. even though there is some kind of Turkish new wave developing since 90's(then the young filmmakers following the path of erden kıral,Zeki Okten and alike...) and temelkuran owes something to that (so-called) movement in terms of camera use his movie far more different than those of new wave directors the main reason of this difference is the characters who are actually real and "in the place" they are not some left off-intellectual even the intellectual one feels like he lived something through his life. and all these characters reflects the facts of ordinary life in turkey which is the fatal point of the movie this ordinary life we talked about points the dramatic changes with the 80 military coup and liberal turkey or with the words of prime minister of that time "little America" so this brings us to the point where individualism is becoming the main understanding in the Turkish community(who establish capitalist affairs at a very late stage) and this is a traumatic event... and in this little day that movie takes place temelkuran examines this traumatic state of mind and do this very powerfully. so where this power lies. first off as we talked about it before temelkuran adopts something from his "new wave" peers long plan shots, close ups all of this are the signature Turkish new wave sty lings but in terms of characters, atmosphere and storytelling the movie place itself to some other angle there is a complete different understanding of Turkish community and everyday life. while Turkish cinema has a great realistic movement back in 60's Turkish directors turn their backs to their realistic roots but this movie really adopts some from Turkish realists such as refiğ, erksan, akad etc... and also ones like lumet. during the movie while we get close to the climax of the main story day slowly turns into night the sun slowly disappears and the tension between characters (unknown to others) becomes so intense that the viewer finds himself in a very discomforting position and this is one of the stronger sides of the movie it puts the viewer into the position where he had to react what he just seen as the relation between the main characters dissolves viewer becomes another character that in need to stop all this. what needs to be mention especially is the performances of all the leads(who are mostly unknown to mainstream Turkish audiences) plays really spectacularly natural and really multiple the overall effect of the(since it is a very character based) movie. also the script is very well written the place and the dialogs feels very real and the writer/director really captures the feeling of the bornova streets. over ally this movie succeeds almost every level it is very hard to find any flaws but this movie holds its power in its honest look at the modern life in turkey and it does this with sheer realistic energy and this is a very rare thing to find in modern film-making.
Review of Bornova Bornova
