Barış Doster'in ``Atatürk`` filmi izlenimleri: Yetim Mustafa’dan milletin atasına...
In the movie, our great leader Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk shows us all once again what human will, courage, determination, combativeness, perseverance and effort can achieve…
Prof. Dr. Barış Doster’s impressions of the movie‘Atatürk‘:
Normally, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Republic. I was excited when I received an invitation to watch Atatürk, a movie that should have been on the agenda due to its release in 2009, but which came to our agenda with great controversy after Disney Plus decided not to show it. I immediately thought of the TV series Kurtuluş (Salvation) starring Rutkay Aziz as Atatürk, written by Turgut Özakman and directed by Ziya Öztan, Zülfü Livaneli’s Veda and the documentary Mustafa by Can Dündar.
I wonder if the Ataturk film would have been the subject of such sharp debates and harsh polemics in our unfortunately highly polarized society. While the reasons for Disney Plus’s decision and the influence of the Armenian lobby on this decision have been on the public agenda, especially on social media, I wonder if this movie would have been discussed to the extent it should have been discussed with its script, the performance of its actors, its director, its producer, its stage, its decor, its costumes, its sound, its lighting, its music, its technical quality?
I had many questions like these on my way to this first screening to which very few people were invited. Moreover, as a person who likes to watch the movie in the cinema, who does not make decisions based on the movie reviews in the culture and arts pages of newspapers, who, to use the fashionable expression, “goes with his head” when going to the cinema, who does not have a social media account, who uses a 20-year-old mobile phone, who is content and happy to keep his distance from technology, I was also terribly curious about the technical and digital features of the film.
When I entered the movie theater, I took precautions from the beginning. As an emotional person who gets teary-eyed easily, I had my tissues ready in my pocket. I also had a notepad and a pen. From the very first minute, the movie began to envelop me, to draw me in, to penetrate me. Sound, light, stage, shadow, costumes were almost perfect for an ordinary movie buff like me. Images from the Gallipoli Battles, Mustafa Kemal’s childhood, his relationships with his mother, father and sister Makbule, his childhood friends Nuri and Salih, his injuries to his chest and eyes while fighting on the front lines, his conflicts with Enver Pasha, his days as a military attaché in Sofia, his loves, and his days in Thessaloniki were told with great success.
Atatürk’s determination and will
In the movie, our great leader Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk shows us all, once again, what human will, courage, determination, combativeness, perseverance and effort can achieve. When Mustafa’s mother, who was angry at Mustafa for constantly asking questions, inquiring and being curious as a child, turns to his brother and says, “What can an orphan do?” and you see the expression on Mustafa’s face, you once again understand Mustafa Kemal’s will of steel. Because when that orphan grows up, he becomes Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who saved his homeland, founded the Republic of Turkey and accomplished the greatest revolution in the world.
In the movie, you see the unrequited and unlimited love for the homeland of Mustafa Kemal and that generation, the Unionist cadres. You see how Mustafa Kemal, who fought with the Arabs against the Italians in Libya, when he was wounded in his left eye, went out of the field hospital in the desert, with his eye taped shut, and went to Enver Pasha to discuss the future of the homeland.
In the movie, you see Atatürk’s interest in opera, the way he asked the woman he liked to dance, the way he went to the costume ball in the uniform of a janissary in the Ottoman Army, the way he never bowed down even in a solitary cell when he was sentenced to prison for his libertarian thoughts, the strong bond between him and his soldiers, the way he led and directed the heroic Mehmetçeri soldiers at the front.
Some information about the movie
Let’s talk about the technical information about the movie. Before watching the movie, I had a conversation with the producers Saner Ayar and Hakan Karamahmutoğlu, and after watching the movie, I had a conversation with the director Mehmet Ada Öztekin and the lead actor Aras Bulut İynemli.
The movie was shot as a 6-part series and we watched the first three episodes. The first TV special will be broadcast on Fox TV on October 29. A few days later, on November 3, the film will be released in theaters in Turkey and 30 other countries from Europe to Azerbaijan, Pakistan to Vietnam. Negotiations are also underway with Russia to release the film in theaters. After September 1, 2024, it will be available on digital platforms (Amazon and/or Netflix). The second movie, the fourth, fifth. and 6. The episodes will be released in theaters in 30 countries including Turkey on January 5, 2024. In the summer of 2024, both movies will be on Fox TV screens.
The movie cost 16.5 million dollars. Saner Ayar and his friends set out in 2019. Filming took place in 10 different cities in Turkey and Macedonia. In Çanakkale, 3,000 people took part in the battle scenes and 1,500 guns that could fire were made. Aras Bulut İynemli, who plays Atatürk in the movie, whose music belongs to Batu Şener, states that he started by reading Atatürk biographies by Şevket Süreyya Aydemir and Lord Kinross and adds: “I had the most difficulty playing Atatürk in his emotional moments”.
In short, making an Atatürk movie is a big, ambitious task. I think the people who set out to do this have done very well. I liked the movie very much. I am sure there will be those who disagree with me and criticize me politically and artistically. It is natural. I hope we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of our Republic. Ataturk movie receives the attention and appreciation it deserves.
