The Chaos Class

When you watch Hababam Sinifi you can not get yourself out from feeling the good old high school ages that you have had. It has lots of school moments that we have all shared which we sometimes still remember and wish that we could still turn back the time and live those years again and again.

The movie keeps us remembering the whole funny situations that we were in, during those years; various ways of cheating exams, running out of class with kinds of funny excuses just to go and watch the final matches, smoking in the toilets during the break-time and so on... Of course the movie gives great lessons against these behaivors with the help of one character which lead the whole "Hababam Sinifi" series. Mahmut Hodja. His moral values and commitment to his students had us all get wet eyes during this comedy. But of course not only him, the whole cast had his own different character profiles. Body Ekrem (which was played by "The Extraoridnary" Sener Sen), Inek Saban, Guduk Necmi, Hafize Ana etc. But of course non of these characters could come to life without the great observations of the fabulous director, Ertem Egilmez (may he rest in peace). During his entire directing career he always made his movies like a mirror holding through the audience and had them to watch themselves in the movies and I can say that Hababam Sinifi is one of his greatest works. Speaking for myself, I must admit that this is my favorite movie of all time and even the movie is played on TV a million times, I never get bored seeing it again and again. I guess none of you would either...

Hababam Sýnýfý (Hababam Class)is a great comedy which reflects as the best example of 'the marvelous era of 70's comedies' of the Turkish cinema. It is about a class of highschool students in a private school. Their school tuition are paid by their ignorant parents who think that's all for them to get prepared for life. The students bond each other as a family. They are lazy, ignorant, funny and the worst nightmare of their teachers. Adile Ana (ana=mother) who is the attendant in the school is like their own mother and she accepts them as real sons.

Their kingdom over the school is challenged when a new principal (Munir Ozkul) comes. He doesn't have a family (says he didn't have time to found one while dealing with others education), and plays a role of though, disciplined, but deep inside a warm hearted teacher and principle.

The movie is full of hilariously funny scenes of the students' adventures between themselves, their teachers, other students and of course the principle who declared a war on them to get them disciplined.

It is funny but also a touchy film when they found the 'father' figure they lost in the principle.

There is one thing we should mention about the plot; the movie reflects the Turkish culture. Therefore there are not brutal gang members in the class terrorizing teachers and the school. They are just playing innocent jokes on everybody not harming anybody but their own future. They are still respectful to the elderly and teachers.

It is a great movie.

Like most of the Turks, I have watched this film lots of times, and each time I still could find it entertaining, funny and touching... It very much deserves the high ratings, however, as many others have already noted down, comedy is not universal. Thus the movie may not mean so much to other nationalities and the rating may lead to wrong impressions/expectations. There seems no solution to this rating problem, but maybe the source of the rating could somehow be noted down somewhere... In this way the visitor will be able to see that (1) it is a masterpiece of Turkish cinema (due to high rating) (2) It has only been watched and rated by mostly Turkish people so far (due to source of rating). In time more people from all over the world might have opportunity to watch and rate this film and we can finally have a "universal" rating for it.

This classic Turkish film (although some might wonder at this mainstream movie being called a film) is etched permanently into the psyche of Turkish culture. It's such a shame that there's no kind of film preservation society in Turkey. No One realizes that this film is going to disappear within the next decade or two. If I'm ever successful I've made a promise to my childhood that I'll find a good print of this film and put efforts forward to restore it and preserve it in various formats so that my kids and their kids can one day see it.

This is a great comedy but obviously a typical American won't laugh as much as a Turkish person. Kemal Sunal and his classmates play it in the same tradition like Jerry Lewis and Charlie Chaplin. I showed the movie to an American friend, and with some translation, he laughed and enjoyed it, too. So, it is normal for Turks to give it a 10 rating, and non-turks to give a 7.3, and the difference is due to something lost in the translation! The other thing is, the Turks don't laugh at actually what the characters are saying, but HOW they are saying... The facial expressions, the accent, body language.. all contribute... So you have to live for a while in Turkey to fully appreciate this movie...