Ulak

this is a timeless film and a timeless story, full of hope and humanity. the actors are magnificent, especially the children and the storyteller.

altogether a beautiful experience that instills hope in everyone. in a way it is very realistic and based in a seemingly real village. then the film shifts between two stories which are linked and share some actors.

it is encouraging because it exposes evil-doers and gives hope that ethical behavior has still a great value. another plus is that the film shows a life-style of old with beautiful costumes and embellishing of the women's face and is set in a rural place which makes you quite nostalgic.

Set in an unspecified medieval period, ULAK centers on Zekeriya, a doctor (Çetin Tekindor) who visits a village and begins to tell mysterious stories of the past, present and future to a group of children and adults. The stories focus on the power of God, the importance of remaining true to oneself and the need to overcome tyranny. The center of his tales is a crippled character Murad (Ömer Hüsnü Turat) who possesses some kind of spiritual power despite his disability.

Zekeriya's presence within the community immediately causes suspicion: what kind of power does he have over the children? For the village elders, accustomed to wielding their patriarchal power over their women and their offspring, he represents a subversive force, and therefore needs to be removed. The only snag is that he possesses the kind of resilience that is infectious - so infectious, in fact, that he encourages the children to resist their parents. Young Ferhat (Atakan Yağız) offers a case in point - despite his father's attempts to beat him into submission, he remains unbowed, and eventually departs with Zekeriya to a better world.

Part-fantasy, past religious epic, Çağan Irmak's film underlines the importance of being true to oneself, even if life's circumstances turn against you. This is way Zekeriya preaches, using his autobiographical experiences with Murad as an example. Tyrannies will never survive in a world whose inhabitants understand the existence of a higher power in whom they can trust. Such views are not only religiously important, they have an intimate bearing on contemporary politics. The film's ending is particularly satisfying, as the children and the believers go forth into a promised land, leaving the former tyrants and their families to die. ULAK is particularly harsh on those who simply follow popular sentiment without understanding anything about themselves or the societies they inhabit. They are at once the least intelligent yet most dangerous of people.

To be honest, some of the action is a little sentimental, adumbrating some of Irmak's later work such as THE SLEEPING PRINCESS (PRENSES'IN UYKUSU), especially towards the end of the the film when Zekeriye reveals the ending to his tale to the accompaniment of swirling violins on the soundtrack. There is also the question of the film's epigraph, dedicated to all children with the capacity to dream; on this view, Irmak suggests that all adults have somehow been corrupted and it is incumbent on the younger generation to create a better world. This might be true, but it suggests a view of childhood with its roots in European Romanticism rather than spirituality.

I am pretty sure Chagan Irmak was aware of the fact that the movie is completely different than what people was expecting. He is brave enough to discuss the issues like freedom of speech, military coups in his movies explicitly. But this time, he was indirect and he makes people to think. In most of the Turkish movies, it is a tradition to give the message in a direct way. But this makes Ulak special .. Irmak breaks those traditions. The photography, costumes are were great. Throughout the movie, I tried where/when the story takes place. What is their religion? I liked that disturbance in my mind. which make me to think and I enjoyed my mind trip!

First of all, the ''Turkish Cinema'' had produced the same things throughout. But this idea of making something different contrary to the meaningless, cheap movies of bad filmmakers is a very venturous business. I think that we owe Çağan Irmak therefore a debt, because his early work was ''Babam Ve Oğlum'', which was very successful in the box-office. Irmak has tried something at least but the transformation of the idea of telling a myth is done very bad to a movie. The development of the movie is very choppy, the characters are sketchy without any deepness, the music was predominantly weird and the overall performance of the actors were common to bad. But the biggest point is, that the movie was too theatrical. This attribute is not appropriated to cinema,you can find it in theaters. The director wanted to give the messages in a artless way, which made some scenes and the filmmaker funny. All in all it's a good try but nothing more...

This film definitely has its own way of telling a story. While watching, it gives you the feeling of listening to a fairy tale, which I haven't felt for many years. I must admit that the film has religious implications, because of the story in the background, but they are not necessarily negative criticisms. By choosing children as the main audience in the "messiah story", this film separates itself from any other religious-story-telling films or books. The costumes, acting and conversations all have that fairy tale style as a whole. I see "hope" as the main theme of this film as "even an unrealistic hope can change people's lives". Please don't watch and judge this movie with your or others belief-defending opinions. It just shows the power of imagination. Also it is a good and a different step for Turkish cinema.