My Dear Brother

I remember how we rejoiced when a television was brought into our house, in almost the same years, when I was also around the age of Kahraman (the little boy in the movie) and we were living in a ghetto as poor as the one in the movie. One of those years I lost my elder sister in a traffic accident, who was going to primary school in a neighborhood on the opposite side of the highway, because there was no school in our newly "built" slum. I wasn't aware of the severeness of the tragedy because of my age but my "dear mother" suffered from that incident all her life. Thereby I witness the movie is so real, besides being one of the best drama movies of the movie industry - FYI, I don't only mean among the Turkish films.

There are tons of things to write about quality and essence of Canım Kardeşim. (My Dearest Little Brother) At first sight it looks like an ordinary melodrama (Melodramas had a great power on Turkish viewer especially at late 70's and early 80's) but the realistic aspect of storytelling and good actors, (Tarık Akan, Halit Akçatepe, with their small role Metin Akpınar and legendary Kemal Sunal) it differs from others. The main keywords of the film are terminal sickness of a child, poverty, dysfunctional family, hard life conditions and television era on Turkey. Spaghetti eating scene, clean urine sample buying scene and final scene were unforgettable. Every foreign people who wants to learn turk style arabesque and emotionality of them or every ex-pat who lives in Turkey must watch this film to understand the crybaby turks.

The story starts in a dark atmosphere, which is located slums of Istanbul in early 70's. During the movie athmospehere gets darker and darker and at last finishes in pitch black. This is quite interesting because in that period as a result of Turkish economy & life standards people would like to see classical comedy or happy endings at cinema contrary to this kind of desperate dramas.

Its about a little boy whom realizes that he has a leukemia whether his brother tries to hide the fact. They believe that they should make the boy really happy in his last days. This is also important because, fact that they are poor they never think about cures.

Not just the boy but also all the supporting roles are quite solid and they have their own stories. Like Halit's reaction to the "b-lady", Kahraman's fathers good old fortune stories, abroad passengers naiveté or what Mehmet does for living. Behind all these stories, Kahraman's perspective to the death shows complete childish purity.

Music is classic, acting is great(I would like to specify all the actors in the movie are famous for their characters in comedies.) Until Yılmaz Güney's "The Wall" and "The Road" movies this movie was probably the only one which was parallel to bulk of Turkish Population & Life Style.

I hope the production company clears the tape and makes a DVD copy of it with foreign subtitles. Because if Turkey has a movie to show to the world, well, this is it...

Turk ve Dunya sinema tarihi için unutulmaz bir Drama Basyapiti

You will never forget this movie. Drama reaches at its highest point with full of friendship, brotherhood and desperation. By the way, Kemal Sunal and Metin Akpinar who are the most popular comedians in Turkish cinema sector appear and add more and more value to movie besides wonderful performance of Tarik Akan and Halit Aktacatepe.