buktel Reviews

Half a Chance (1998)

now is better than later or never

[19 August 2007]

I would like Delon and Belmondo had come together for the second time at least ten years earlier. Then the action scenes would be not only more credible but more creative, too.

The story of the film is basically creative, but the action scenes take more than enough time while the real asset of the story (and of the film, too) was not the action but the relation of the three major characters. I would like to see much more scenes about the relations of the extraordinary characters and smart dialogs among them, that is, I would rather to enjoy the magnetism of the acting and personalities of the extraordinary triangle of Delon/Belmondo/Paradis than to watch the ordinary explosions, ordinary mafia guys, ordinary car chases, ordinary flying bullets and the other similarly ordinary trifles.

Delon and Belmondo must come together for a third time, and this time without waiting for ten years more. Yes it may be already late. But now is better than later or never.

Lovelorn (2005)

The Turkish version of "Enough"

[7/10 · 26 January 2007]

Sener Sen is perfect. Meltem Cumbul plays not her film character but a crafty player playing her character. Timucin Esen is perfect. Director Yavuz Turgul's story seems like borrowed from Michael Apted's "Enough" (which starred Jennifer Lopez and script of which is written by Nicholas Kazan). Both "Gonul Yarasi" and "Enough" have the same storyline, in which an oppressed woman ill treated by her psychopathic husband runs away from him taking her (and his) child with her.

It may be said that there is no part for Sener Sen in "Enough". Well, there is no need for the part of Sener Sen in "Gonul Yarasi", either. Everything told and shown about the character Sen plays is just secondary and does not support the main plot of Gonul Yarasi. Yavuz Turgul could easily omit Sen's character from the story and better focus his camera on Cumbul and Esen relation. In that case, the character of Sümer Tilmaç would get a little larger and deeper and could include (only when necessary) Sen's part, too.

Although the name of Sener Sen is written on the top of the cast, although the camera sees him more frequently than any other character; "Gonul Yarasi" is essentially Cumbul's and Esen's story (the implied love between Sen and Cumbul is just a rifle which never fires in the story) and Sener Sen is just a helpless witness in it, unable to do anything to change the course and the finale of the main plot which is also the main plot of "Enough".

But in order to make justice towards Turgul, we must declare that despite the flaws of the plot (for example, the psychopathic husband wouldn't tolerate for one moment Sen's giving Cumbul shelter at his home and living together with her under the same roof) "Gonul Yarasi" is much better a film than "Enough" in many ways including credibility and artistic quality. COSKUN BUKTEL

Michael Strogoff (1956)

One of my almost forgotten nostalgia

[8/10 · 22 December 2006]

I saw Michel Strogoff when I was just a little boy in fifties, at cinema Elhamra in Izmir. Its Turkish name was "Volga Mahkumlari" (The Prisoners of Volga). Later, I read the Turkish translation of the Jules Verne book which was published with the same title of the original book the film was based on. I remember the run and chase plot of the book better than the film's plot. The only things I remember of the film are its sad (maybe gloomy)atmosphere and Curd Jurgens who was captured by spies of the villain and was blinded with a red-hot iron stick. The sequence made such a strong impression on me that although I have forgotten almost all the other aspects of the film ("the events happen in Russia") I have never forgotten it.

I must have noticed the existence of Sylva Koscina who has been one of my boyhood idols, for the first time in Michel Strogoff. I have completely forgotten Koscina's image in Michel Strogoff but still remember her Playboy photographs shoving her naked in water.

It would just be a wonderful nostalgic pleasure if I could have a DVD of Michel Strogoff! COSKUN BUKTEL

Karpuz Kabugundan Gemiler Yapmak (2004)

It is unjust to call it "a sort of Cinema Paradiso"

[5 June 2006]

Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds (Karpuz Kabugundan Gemiler Yapmak) is so naive a film that it resembles to no other film. People who call it another Cinema Paradiso just for the reason that its two principal adolescent characters love cinema, don't make justice towards Watermelon Rinds. Cinema Paradiso is a professionally produced and acted Italian film in which one of the two principal parts is acted by a French star (Philippe Noiret) whereas Watermelon Rinds in which all parts are acted by real townspeople takes all its mesmerizing power from its sheer amateur (natural and warm) quality in everything, especially, in acting.

The way people talk (the agreeable local accent they use) is one of the most valuable assets of Watermelon Rinds. The touching quality of warmth and sincerity of this film makes one think if a really good movie can be done only without professionals (especially without professional actors). You may experience the same feeling when you watch a certain Italian film which is named not Cinema Paradiso but Ladri Di Biciclette. In this respect (and only in "this" respect) you may better try to find similarity between Ahmet Uluçay's "Karpuz Kabugundan Gemiler Yapmak" and Vittorio De Sica's "Ladri Di Biciclette".

Because of the rumors about Watermelon Rinds being just a sort of Cinema Paradiso, I had resented the film and not watched it till now. And now I have realized that the rumors had made justice n'either to the film nor to me.

Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds is in no way a sort of Cinema Paradiso. In fact it resembles nothing but itself. Congratulations, Mr Uluçay!

COSKUN BUKTEL

The Spanish Gardener (1956)

Just a little correction about Cronin

[7 April 2006]

I just want to correct a little misstatement made by FAC ([e-mail]) in his (or her) well written Spanish Gardiner comment. He (or she) mistakenly says Spanish Gardiner and How Green Was My Valley were novels both written by A.J. Cronin. In fact, the latter was written by Richard Llewellyn.

Spanish Gardiner also made a strong impression on me, since I was at the age of the boy in the film when I saw it first in a cheap black and white copy, at a garden cinema in Izmir, in the Fifties. Dirk Bogarde had been my hero then due to the Spanish Gardiner in which he was unjustly treated and along with it his other two films in both of which he died. (In A Tale of Two Cities he was the first character I watched being beheaded by the guillotine. In The Singer Not The Song, he was a handsome, malicious, romantic villain wearing black from top to hills and paying for his sinful deeds at the end.) I was very sorry for Bogarde at that time. I thought however he was a bandit villain (in The Singer Not The Song) he should marry beautiful Mylene Demongeot. (Oh! How could I have forgotten her for so many years!) COSKUN BUKTEL

Purple Noon (1960)

"Purple Noon" or "Kizgin Gunes" as we title it in Turkey...

[9/10 · 22 December 2005]

I watched "The Purple Noon" with the Turkish title "Kizgin Günes" which means "The Scorching Sun" at cinema Elhamra in Izmir when I was 12 or so. (My birth date is 1950.) It was the first time when I saw the name and the image of Alain Delon on a movie poster. On the poster Delon was seen naked on the upper part of his body, directing a yacht's steering wheel. Years later I would read Highsmith's "Talented Mr. Ripley" and realize that, the screenplay of the movie had some fortunate differences from the book.

One of these differences was the interesting dialog between Delon and Ronet on the latter's yacht just before the murder. This dialog which is written by the director Rene Clement (or his co-writer Paul Gogeoff), is, in my opinion, one of the finest, in all film history. Delon, tells Ronet, as a joke, about his plan to kill him and adopt his identity. Ronet enjoys the joke and criticizes the plan on its weak points. Delon logically answers all the criticisms Ronet has made. Ronet gradually realizes that the plan is too thoughtfully conceived and too minutely prepared. He begins to suspect that it may not be a joke. He gets nervous and then frightened, but only too late. Delon, suddenly initiating to materialize the plan, gets up and stabs Ronet with a knife. Ronet dies with a shock in his eyes.

Delon throws away Ronet's body off the yacht into the sea. But he is unaware that he has failed to get rid of Ronet's body. At the final episode of the movie when the yacht is laid on the stocks, policemen(differently again from the book) find Ronet's moss covered body entangled with the propellers. In the film, Delon is caught by law whereas in the book, Ripley is not.

After 40 years, all I remember of the film are the things which are absent (maybe missed) in the book. I also like the Highsmith's book and don't like the idea of changing books text just for the fancies of directors of cinema or stage. But Clement's (and Gogeoff's) script, I think, was full of creativity. I like Minghella's recent version of "Talented Mr. Ripley" much less than the Highsmith's book and Clement's film version of it. Minghella, seems to me, among many other things, especially missed Delon and the Fifties and the subtleties of Clement's script.

After seeing the film and the fascinating personality of Delon as an actor, I had resolved that I would see any Delon film I would come across thereafter and did so.

COSKUN BUKTEL