Review by Mike Martin
Stars Tayanç Ayaydin, Genco Erkal, Senay Aydin, Hakan Sahin, Rojîn Ulker, Övül Avkiran, Onur Ünsal
Produced by Roshanak Behesht Nedjad
Written by Ben Hopkins
Certification UK 15 | Netherlands 12
Runtime 93 minutes
Directed by Ben Hopkins
Capitalism sucks. It’s all over – from Enron to Michael Moore, film-makers have started telling us we’re all doomed. So what of another view, from a poorer country with a different culture from the US? Turkey for example, home of the haggle, what do they think of the global meltdown? Well, apparently, capitalism still sucks and we’re all still doomed.
This is a subtle, sly and clever look at the world of money though, with more than a tip of the hat to The Third Man – child drugs are at the very heart of the action. Mihram is a Turkish man trying to get along with a deal here and a deal there – the film opens with him selling a cable to a man whom he actually stole it from. Times are hard though, there is only soup on the table for his wife and their young child, so he determines to do something.
Spurning a chance to join a local gangster in a dodgy mobile phone business, Mihram hears of a shortage of an unspecified child medicine in Turkey. A doctor can give him cash up front to get it from neighbouring Azerbijhan, but there will be no fee for him. He agrees to the job, but has a plan – he will smuggle in a mineral vital for a factory, sell it to them at a profit, use the money to buy the drug from a hospital, bring it back and have cash left over to pay his accomplice, his uncle.
As is always the way with these things – and in society as a whole, the film seems to be saying – the deal goes wrong. Mihram has a tense ride through the border, and the deal with the factory nearly goes under. Unable to resist a game of cards he stakes the medicine money, then his uncle’s connection at the hospital lets him down. Can he leave without the vital supplies? And is he doing it for the children, as his wife believes, or for his own profit?
It’s a beautifully played and paced drama, with moments of almost unbearable tension – the card game in particular is seared with peril, yet it works because of the hugely sympathetic performances. Ayaydin in particular gives a nuanced portrayal of a man trying to keep his family alive and survive in an increasingly hostile and baffling world – he’s not particularly smart or brave, but on his side we certainly are. It’s no Wal-Mart or Capitalism: A Love Story but it certainly works as both a drama and satire on how we are all going to make a living.