TURKEY: Ottoman rogue is latest Turkish movie hero.

Turkish cinema audiences love their heroes and the brawling, roguish womaniser Yandim Ali -- who takes on British forces occupying Istanbul in "The Last Ottoman" -- fits the bill perfectly. The film, set during the break-up of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War One, taps into a growing wave of nationalism in Turkish cinema which has fed on historical themes and current issues such as the war in neighbouring Iraq. Exploiting the popularity of Turkish television stars, local films are now mounting a major challenge to the Hollywood productions which used to dominate cinema screens here. The mass-market local productions are also much more of a hit with audiences at home than the Turkish art house movies that have won critical acclaim abroad. Mustafa Sevki Dogan, director of "The Last Ottoman", is under no illusions about the recipe for success with his central character, based on a popular comic strip hero. Describing film's main character Yandim Ali, as a great hero, Dogan says heroism is something which always appeals to Turkish people. "When we look at our our past, since from childhood, heroes always have been attracted us. We always keep a hope to be hero one day. That's how we have been grown in Turkey." he told Reuters. In his film, Yandim Ali evolves from a loveable rogue to a hero of the country's liberation from foreign forces, inspired by the example of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. "We did a nationalist film in a meaning, but when you look at the whole movie, it is an anti imperialist movie, which it has to be" said Dogan describing his film. But said it was important to guard against extreme nationalism in the cinema. Ultra-nationalists have been blamed in Turkey for a number of crimes, most recently the murder of prominent Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink in Istanbul. Dogan also had a hand in the creation of a television series which last year spawned Turkey's most successful film, the controversial "Valley of the Wolves-Iraq", whose hero Polat Alemdar single-handedly battles U.S. forces in Iraq. The Wolves film, with a record budget of $10 million, drew on anti-American sentiment in Turkey after a real-life incident in Iraq when U.S. forces arrested and hooded Turkish special forces, causing widespread anger and a diplomatic incident. "The subject was a matter of pride for Turkish people and was seen as a way of getting revenge ... It became clear that audiences could be attracted with such films. It has become something of a fashion," said film critic Ugur Vardan. "Valley of the Wolves" is one of two Turkish films to draw a four-million-strong audience. It eclipsed the science-fiction comedy G.O.R.A., in which comedian Cem Yilmaz's character fights to escape the clutches of the aliens who abducted him. Alongside "The Last Ottoman", the other box-office success this year has been "The Masked Five in Iraq" in which a clumsy Turkish gang outwits U.S. forces in Iraq to divert oil resources from there to Turkey. Such mass-appeal films have in Turkey eclipsed the critical acclaim which some Turkish art house movies have earned abroad. One of the first major successes was Yilmaz Guney's "Yol" (Road) which won the Golden Palm at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival with its harsh portrayal of life after the 1980 coup. More recently, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's film "Uzak" (Far) won the Cannes Grand Jury and best actor awards in 2003 but drew a local audience of just 30,000, said film producer Mehmet Soyarslan. "But only with festival type of films, you can not create the cinema of a huge nation. That means that, we have to have our industry not only for Turkey but also international markets has to have a certain demand for the mainstream Turkish pictures" he told Reuters at the offices of his company Ozen Film, one of Turkey's leading film companies. He said critical success has had to take a back seat while the local film industry is developed to compete with bigger-budget foreign productions. Turkish cinema fell into decline in the mid-1970s with the spread of television. As a result, the number of cinema screens fell from several thousand to around just 250. By the time it began to recover in the late 1980s there were few producers and directors to make films, and few people willing to invest. Only in 1996 did cinema take a leap forward with the success of the film Eskiya, which drew an audience of more than 2.5 million people with its portrayal of the life of a bandit following his release from jail after a 35-year sentence. The number of locally made films has now doubled to around 30 annually. Audiences of these films account for some 50 percent of box office receipts. The last decade has also seen the domestic film industry progressing technically and the next step is to achieve greater international success for local films.

ITN Source | March 22, 2007

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