Whirlpool

Umut is a freshman who moves in Istanbul, and seeks an apartment for rent because he can’t find any dorms available. After staying in a hotel for a few days where he can’t feel very comfortable, he finds another undergraduate who is looking for a housemate to share the rent. They also find a third guy, a sophomore to ease off the financial burden and start sharing the apartment and seem to get along pretty well.

Things change dramatically with the most weird thing happening in the living room, which also happens to be the bedroom of the third guy. The guy wakes up in the morning screaming, because all the objects are upside down. Even though nobody claims it, they first think this is a prank so they decide to sleep altogether in the same room the next night. Yet, the same thing happens again.

So the kids go to a religious figure for an advice, and the old man says they must have disturbed an honorable soul around with the “sins” committed in the apartment. The kids admit that there is sin in the apartment, because after all, it is a bachelors home.

So they follow the advices of the religious old man, which also opens the doors for them to a seemingly new world. From this point on, we watch these three undergraduate convert into fanatic fundamentalist. Actually, we pretty much follow the story of Umut, the change of his attitudes towards his family and girlfriend, but we also see that the other kids are changing too, parallel to him.

In the end, we see how these kids are manipulated and more importantly disposed for the sake of some dark intentions which doesn’t even have to be related with religion at all. The film claims that it is based on a true story.

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Great Story And Storytelling

This is a very neat movie which focuses on the story it has to say, and nothing more. There aren’t any dialogues which take longer than they should take, or there aren’t any scenes which last like forever just to show you one “cool” gesture. There is obviously a political message it tries to give, but you won’t see any lectures or some exaggerated performance trying to influence you. I really appreciated the director Talip Karamahmutoglu in the sense that, he focuses on telling his story, and he makes sure that you get his message when you finish watching the film. As a matter of fact, there are many scenes which may even make you feel like the movie is trying to tell you pretty much the opposite message it actually has- which I believe proves that the director has made his homework and successfully depicts the world these undergraduates fall into. You know that he is not talking about some fantasy world but the truth.

Then What Is The Problem

Even though this is indeed a masterfully handled movie, there is however an element of unsatisfaction, which makes you feel like there is something missing with it. When I t thought about, I realized that there are two main reasons for this.

The first reason is the poor performance of some of some of the actors/actresses in the movie. In particular, I really wouldn’t like to offend anyone but Eda Ozerkman in the role of Zeynep character was definitely weak, and you can feel it strongly with some powerful actors/actresses such as Ali Surmeli, or even with Ozan Bilen or Emre Canpolat who are supposed to be at the same caliber with her. Unfortunately she is the weakest link of this movie and her scenes are lack of credible dramatization.

But the most important reason for why you feel like there is something missing with this movie is actually the very same reason why it is so powerful. It actually took my second time that I watched this movie to realize this. There is indeed no superfluous scene, no superfluous dialogue in this movie and everything you watch and hear serves the sole purpose of telling you the story. The director really focuses on this aspect of the movie, and yet, the human element seems like missing to some extent. At this point, if you realize that this movie actually uses symbolism in the sense that it only gives you the most salient frame of the worlds he is trying to picture, perhaps you will enjoy more.