Mustafa Hakkinda Hersey

Sometimes it's wise to set aside one's prejudices against a film and consider it on its own merits as a contribution to the knowledge of the society that produces it.

Such is the case with MUSTAFA HAKKINDA HERŞEY (ALL ABOUT MUSTAFA). A Gothic melodrama reveling in its extremities, Çağan Irmak's film in my opinion piles absurdity on absurdity culminating in a sentimental denouement. But perhaps I am looking at it through jaundiced eyes.

The plot is straightforward: Mustafa (Fikret Kuşkan) is a successful businessman with a wife (Başak Köklükkaya) and son (Arda Seçgün) who runs his own film and advertising business. Life seems fairly good to him, although he does seem a little extreme in his reactions, especially during meetings. His wife Ceren dies unexpectedly in a car accident, that sends Mustafa into paroxysms of grief. Later on he discovers that she had had an affair with taxi-driver Fikret (Nejat İsler), so Mustafa determines to wreak revenge by imprisoning Fikret in a lonely house and forcibly extracting the truth from him. As time passes, we learn that Mostafa has had a highly troubled childhood, which explains why he reacts so excessively to the news of his wife's death.

The film is full of lurid sequences using tilted cameras and vivid colors to denote Mustafa's tortured state of mind. While alone with Fikret, he subjects the unfortunate taxi-driver to extreme forms of punishment, often involving S&M, which makes us feel that there is a sexual dimension to his sadism. The film includes tropes familiar from other Çağan Irmak films - the isolated house recalls KAÇAN FIRSATLAR LİMİTED; the sculptures adumbrate TAMAM MİYİZ?, and the sadism recalls KARANLIK TAKİLER. Throughout we are led to believe that Mustafa's behavior can be attributed to his childhood, especially his relationship to his father (who was equally sadistic).

At the same time he is portrayed as a family man with a touching concern for Kerem. This suggests some kind of cathartic desire; once he has exorcised the devil of childhood from his consciousness, he can be somehow released from mental torment. The diabolic aspects of the film are well brought out through the use of fast cutting.

The film does not tell us much about contemporary Turkish society; rather it suggests that human beings have to find their own means of coping with existence. Sometimes they cannot do this, and hence descend into abnormality.

With everyone around him faking it and him being ignorant to the actual feelings of people in his life, Mustafa gets sucked into a paradigm shift after an unlucky(?) accident places a stranger as the key to piece together his collapsed life. Yet, Mustafa will find more than what he was looking for and maybe much more than he wished for as he listens to his life told to him in a way he never perceived before. The more it is revealed, the more he discovers what has been told cannot be untold and its ramifications keeps resonating until one becomes part of oblivion. Sometimes to live on, we choose what we see and what we believe in even if it is a lie and Mustafa will not have that luxury to live on as he used to from now on, not anymore...and you will have your share of it after Mustafa touches your life. With Mustafa going through a wide spectrum of emotional turmoil, Fikret Kuskan(Mustafa)'s performance is the highlight of the movie while Nejat Isler(Fikret)'s performance shouldn't be left unnoticed as his character goes through his share of frustration and victim psychology. Even though there were some plot problems with the coherence of the movie, overall this movie was a long due achievement for the Turkish Movie Industry with the wonderful choice of "Mor ve Otesi" as the soundtrack. Get a glass of wine and enjoy this wonderful movie and maybe you will get the urge to see the fireflies as well before everything is over.

Nice attempt to improve the Turkish Movie Industry but its plot is not an original idea. The performances of the players are praiseworthy, but it seems to me that it has some inefficiencies in screenplay. Especially, after the kidnapping of Fikret, the dialogs between him and Mustafa are sometimes very hilarious. I mean this is a high tension movie (at least it is expected to be) and those ridiculous speeches cause me to lose my attention and desire to the kidnapping incident. Fikret Kuskan and Nejat Isler were so successful, and even her small part Basak Koklukaya was awesome.. Despite of all above negative points, I think it is worth to watch this movie; 6.5/10

This is a film starting with quite a low tempo that you feel you'll be watching the clash of two guys for one woman.But even in the times you feel like you're watching a film just based on the dialogs of two men you can get satisfied with the level of acting by the two actors.Most spectacularity of this film is that by not giving any clue to you that surprises will happen when you get closer to the end with the real success of the director you experience some interesting things in the film which changes your sympathy to the major roles.Or it doesn't change your opinion but lets you to some little or more eye drops.For me the most interesting comment could be said for this movie is that,in the first part you ask yourself that "Did I make a wrong decision to start watching the movie" and when the second part comes you say yourself that "Yes.This is not the film of my life but not only worth watching but also one of the best among the similar ones" As a last word I can say that this film is definitely in the best ten films directed in Turkey.Congratulations to the crew.

"Mustafa hakkinda hersey" is the best Turkish movie i've seen this year so far. Its interesting story is being told very excitingly, and Fikret Kuskan who plays the betrayed husband called Mustafa, delivers a masterpiece of work.

Director Cagan Irmak is telling the story bi-linear, since you're always changing sides between the betrayed and betrayer while watching. I really can recommend this Drama to everyone, who wants to find out his own feelings between anger and sadness.

There are also 1 or two things that maybe should have been told more precise, for instance like Mustafa's childhood. Also the final dialog could have been better, since it is one of the most important parts of Mustafa's story. But it is not screwing up things.

Bravo to everyone who worked on that film.