G.O.R.A.

What are your expectations when you go to see a film? The most noticeable characteristic of Turkish people is that they are able to subtly critise their own culture through comedy and this is what the film has done superbly. When I read general reviews of this film, including the ones on this site, I can't help but see how Cem Yilmaz has quite cleverly and creatively worked a variety of cultural characteristics into a fictional theme. I believe that viewers who have reviewed the film in a light of this have done it justice... and come on, if there are so many 'Arif's out there, how can we still question whether or not there are extra- terrestrial life forms out there too! :-)

This is a highly successful and thoroughly hilarious film. When I walked out of the cinema, it didn't even cross my mind to analyze the film in the way I usually would.. I mean why should I? I really don't believe the writer or director even thought of doing this themselves. it's not 'persona' or anything. I experienced two hours of solid laughter. I mean what else would I have wished for? (When I think back though, the only down side was I didn't buy enough pop corn...:-))

Personally, I didn't feel the need to overstress the superb quality of the visual effects either. Yes they were surprisingly fantastic, very 'Hollywood', but this didn't add or take away from the film in any way. Put it this way, if a song is beautifully written then it will sound great even if you were to just serenade it. But if the song is crap/ badly written, then even the London Philharmonic Orchestra can't do much with it believe me!

In short, this film must not be missed! Leave all your expectations at home and don't watch it with any intention of reviewing it... just sit back & enjoy.

Arif is a typical Turkish bloke selling carpets to tourists in Western Turkey. He is also obsessed with creating fake pictures of UFOs. Then he gets abducted by aliens from the GORA planet. After all there is no rule that says aliens can only abduct people from the USA. Nor is there a rule that says that only Americans can make contact with extra-terrestrial life forms. So what happens if aliens abduct a Turkish carpet seller ?

Basically, GORA is a good piss take of the more popular sci-fi movies such as Starwars and Matrix. And that's fine with me, because I believe both Starwars (feel the Farce) and Matrix (I know Kung Fu) are extremely overrated movies. The sense of humour in GORA is Turkish. That is neither a praise nor an insult. It is just Turkish. The subtitles don't help either. For some reason Turkish movie producers hire awful translators who sometimes even mix German with English. Translation between languages that are as different from each other as Turkish and English requires slightly more than a word-by-word correspondence. I hereby offer my services free of charge. Just ask. Had the subtitles been any better the movie could have achieved some international recognition as a comedy movie. Turkish speakers should definitely watch this movie. They'll have a good laugh. Non-Turks should give it a try.

Well, first of all, this movie is a good project. There is no science-fiction film in the history of Turkish cinema, and if you think about the budget, which was about 4 Mio. USD and nevertheless huge for Turkish proportions, George Lucas wasted a budget of 125 Mio USD for Star Wars Episode III, then it is the optimum of what has been created.

The story is no revolution, but no one ever expected that. Cem Yilmaz realised his vision of "Turks in space" and made his work well. His love for details is average.

To understand everything in that film, first you gotta be Turkish, since a big part of the humor is based on the street language that Cem Yilmaz is using perfectly. The second thing is, you have to know some US Science-Fiction movies like Star Wars, Matrix or Star Trek. Only the combination of these two requirements makes the movie really funny.

G.O.R.A is unusual to the Turkish public, so this is why some people didn't like it I think. I consider this work as new era of special fx in Turkish movies.

In the end, it is a solid Turkish space movie.

Despite a lot of complaints that non-Turks would not find this funny, I did. I have seen it twice now. I do quite enjoy it and find much of it funny, with some parts extremely funny. Granted, a few things were not especially original, or were pretty tired or crude without being humorous to me, but these were minor problems and films like this always have some jokes that don't appeal to everyone. I cannot say I don't like a movie simply because I personally don't like some of the jokes or gags. Overall, the film was quite well-done and most of the jokes or spoofs of culture and films worked quite well.

One fun thing is to see this sort of film made from a Turkish perspective, rather than American. It puts a new twist on some things, even jokes that we've seen before or which would have been in an American or other film.

In part, I am sure my enjoyment of the film is helped by the fact that, while hardly being fluent in Turkish, I do know some Turkish and am quite familiar with the country. Therefore, while there are a number of very Turkey-specific jokes, I was able to enjoy at least some of them. I would therefore agree that a decent understanding of at least Turkish culture and recent history, if not the language, will enhance one's enjoyment of the film.

Other humour in the film seems pretty universal. As a result, there are quite a lot of jokes and spoofs that I know many Americans and Western Europeans would get. Again, while some are tired or crude, many are really quite funny and pulled off quite well.

I think that my biggest complaint is that some themes were not taken far enough. For example, more could have been done with the carpet salesman thing since that part was really quite funny and had more potential than the film exploited.

In the end, this is a pretty well-made, funny, and entertaining film. It could have been better, but it works well and should provide quite a few laughs, especially if one knows much about Turkey. It's rather silly, but that is pretty much the point, and the silliness here is mostly quite entertaining.

Although not really relevant for my discussion, I shall add that this film is also a milestone for Turkish cinema in terms of the special effects and production values for a film of this sort. I think it's important to recognize this, even though I was primarily concerned with giving my opinion of the film's content, etc. Thus, while one may be able to criticize some visuals compared to some big-budget Hollywood films, the production values/special effects are pretty good, especially considering the context.

G.O.R.A is the funniest film ever! You just can't stop laughing while watching the movie. There are references to popular films such as 'Star Wars' and 'Matrix', but the film is definitely not a copy of these films. Also there are references to Turkish culture, which would make some foreigners not understand some of the jokes. As well as this, there are jokes that they would even laugh at more. About the summary: Arif is a carpet seller and a tourist guide. He also tries to produce and sell fake UFO pictures. While he is trying sell a carpet to a customer, he is kidnapped by aliens. The spaceship, controlled by the commander Lugar brings him to the planet GORA with other slaves. Then the adventure starts...