Anayurt Oteli is based on a novel by an Turkish author, Yusuf Atilgan. It tells the dilemma of a hotel receptionist, Zebercet, who is locked in to his workplace –he is the only employer of the establishment except a cleaning lady- and gradually becomes an obsessed loner with his lack of communication with any other human beings and shows an inclination toward sexual deviation. By this film, the late Turkish director Omer Kavur produced a very successful literary adaption which is so rare in Turkish cinema. The film is not only providing a thoroughly examination of a very bizarre character, but also brilliantly portrays a Turkish small town with its historical buildings, marketplaces, coffeehouses, pubs, courtrooms, barber shops, train stations, movie theaters along with an emphasis on the basic routines such as Friday prayers, local administration announcements heard from street loudspeakers, cockfights and so on. The hotel building also plays a major part in the film and can be easily considered as one of the film characters. The film was made in the late 1980s, but luckily time was not being so harsh on it. If anyone is interested with the higher limits of the Turkish cinema, I'm sure this is one of the films that should be revisited.
6 Reviews
More Than A Hotel: Motherland
pasalihakan30 June 2007
A three stories, fourteen rooms manor facing the street that leads from station square to main street of the city (indeed Manisa). Once built on the Greek neighbourhood by great grandfather of Zebercet (Olivine). Luckily rescued from the fire of 1922. But after that, the family decides to move to Izmir and the father of Zebercet insists on turning it into a hotel. Zebercet, the clerk and present owner of the hotel after his father, born in 1930 in the big room (now No.1) in the ground floor (now the lobby).
One day a beautiful woman stays there one night and leaves to "visit again within a week or so" and Zebercet starts to wait for this unknown but seemingly long-waited woman who came with delayed Ankara train, as he has been waiting this Kafkaesque manor and the dead. He keeps waiting for her. He gradually loses track of daily life. And hotel goes into a deterioration as if implying psychological decline of its proprietor.
This based-on-a-novel film is the most striking story of loneliness, alienation and depression in Turkish cinema. It tells the conflict of individual in a repressive society, sexual isolation and distortion of personality.
One day a beautiful woman stays there one night and leaves to "visit again within a week or so" and Zebercet starts to wait for this unknown but seemingly long-waited woman who came with delayed Ankara train, as he has been waiting this Kafkaesque manor and the dead. He keeps waiting for her. He gradually loses track of daily life. And hotel goes into a deterioration as if implying psychological decline of its proprietor.
This based-on-a-novel film is the most striking story of loneliness, alienation and depression in Turkish cinema. It tells the conflict of individual in a repressive society, sexual isolation and distortion of personality.
Our turk
sinanuckardes6 February 2019
Masterpiece
yusufpiskin30 July 2021
Yusuf Atilgan, Omer Kavur, Macit Koper and The Cure. An amazing staff. An amazing adaptation. An amazing work of art. Literally "a movie dedicated to loneliness". In this sense, it is very faithful to the work to which it is adapted. Anyone who says they love cinema should watch it.
Shame thls movie is thrown out as a masterpiece of Turkish cinema
toprako-8252018 January 2022
Such a bad acting, lights, sound and music for a 1987 year made movie. The novel is pretty good and obscure but thid adaptation doesn not reflete at all the atmosphere.
Dialogues are literally taken word by word from the novel which makes the adaptation harder.
Passage from a scene to another are really awkward and make difficult to follow.
It reminded me of how mediocre was the adaptation of 'The Stranger' novel by Camus to the cinema . This is no exception To resume, a poor adaptation which doesn't stand the test of tlme...
Nothlng genius in thls movle, not one thlng.
Dialogues are literally taken word by word from the novel which makes the adaptation harder.
Passage from a scene to another are really awkward and make difficult to follow.
It reminded me of how mediocre was the adaptation of 'The Stranger' novel by Camus to the cinema . This is no exception To resume, a poor adaptation which doesn't stand the test of tlme...
Nothlng genius in thls movle, not one thlng.
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