Review of Sonbahar

Sonbahar (2008)
5/10
Why?
10 February 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Without any discrimination, there are some clichés nearly in all the movies. Some movies have one of those clichés and some of them -like Sonbahar- have many more.

First of all the story of the movie! As we all know that there are Vietnam veterans returned to USA and had serious psychological and social problems in their home towns. Finally we fed up after watching tens of movies over the years. Honestly, there is no need to see another one because there is nothing left to know about the situation of those veterans. So if you want to make another suffering Vietnam veteran movie then you need somethings really but really good reason to do it. Otherwise you better to sit down and look for another project. The situation is the same with Sonbahar. There are many movies in Turkey based on a story of some youngs who killed, tortured or at least jailed for long time just because of their thoughts and good wishes for their country. Of course it is depressing to see what they really had while there were fighting, in the jail or their life after the jail etc but again, it is enough. We know what and why happened to these people and Sonbahar does not tell anything different or interesting at all. By the way some critics say that the movie about F-Type prisons -which we all deny as they are fully out of prisoner's/human rights- but I found nothing about F-type prisons in the movie. There are some footages about it like the one in the beginning and sometimes during the movie but there are meaning less if you are not familiar or do not know what and why exactly happened to the prisoners in that prison in Istanbul.

A young man returns to his hometown after having serious health problems in the jail that he was put cause of his political actions. He faces up to himself until he dies. What an interesting story!! Clichés over clichés come one by one during the movie, having the story itself as the biggest one. Similar to many other movies, a person knows that he will die soon and he wants to do the most important things before he passes away. This is what Yusuf also does. He drinks, goes to the mountain in the winter -which is very dangerous- meets with old friends, fights with himself in his mind, becomes close to a woman etc etc etc which are all simple and needless. Another cliché is "dying just after the happening of the one that was waited for". What Yusuf does is, he makes a bagpipe and when he finishes the mouthpiece as a last part, he dies. How strange ! By the way, he has serious difficulties to breath but how he can go to mountain, how he can have sex with a prostitute and finally how he can play a bagpipe with these lungs!! Whatever...

There many other things about the movie but I want to say somethings as a last critic which bored me most. The relation between Yusuf and a prostitute. He meets with that girl and starts fighting to himself later in the movie. The situation is that the girl is from Georgia which was a part of old Soviet Socialist block that means she is a symbol of the politic view of Yusuf. He feels like a ping pong ball in thought as he wants her as a woman but also can not decide how to act by the political side as he is a socialist. What I felt while watching the movie is that the prostitute character does not fit to the movie. It is like the director decided to put her in the movie to tell the changes of the hometown and Yusuf's psychology at political side. But we do not now who she is, what is it going on with her kid etc. She is just there as nobody and have some relation with Yusuf.

So, there is almost nothing interesting to me with this movie. If you have time and like some pastoral scenes then I recommend it. Otherwise it is just a simple movie.
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