Little Ayse and the Magic Dwarfs in the Land of Dreams

One of the most faithful adaptations of the L. Frank Baum classic ever made, this film suffers only in the costume design and the fact that Türkiye did not have sync-sound in 1971. The film has a beautiful touch of the surreal, with a small Emerald city appearing in the middle of a Turkish plain. The music is filled with American folk tunes. The cinematography, direction, and editing are brilliant, and the adorable Zeynep Degirmengiolu is a fine Dorothy (called Aysecik, a role Zeynep played in many films for children), though in her age about that of the MGM Dorothy, and not Baum's little girl protagonist. The Scarecerow comes across as a "pansy" homosexual stereotype, though the actor would play Aysecik's boyfriend in _Hayat Sevince Guzel_. The crew must go to visit Glinda, and starts a second quest in the book, to see the good witch, here called Nilifas.