With his directorial debut 'Mar' (Snake), Caner Erzincan made an auspicious start in his career. Mar, which recounts the story of a single father who is trying to survive with his two children, was like a breath of fresh air in the stifling atmosphere of Turkish first films which had been imitating the minimalist style of N.B. Ceylan and Zeki Demikubuz. In spite of the fact that Mar was a brilliant film, it had a limited screening in local theaters and unfortunately it was seen by so few people. Most people probably had the chance to get to know this film either through pirate copies on the Internet or by buying the DVD. Yeni Dünya (New World), just like Mar, is getting a limited screening in local theaters.However,Yeni Dünya will probably be seen by more people than the number of people who saw Mar in theaters but I guess many people who adored the first film of Mr. Erzincan won't find the same artistic value in Yeni Dünya. Yeni Dünya tells the story of a rural family's troublesome migration from the countryside to the city. A father, a mother and a kid with a Down syndrome sets out on a long road to Istanbul. The couple wants better education opportunities for their kid and they also need the nursing money provided by the government. The question then arises, Why Istanbul? If the parents want a better education for their kid, could they not look for those facilities in a closer city? If they needed the money so badly, couldn't they deal with the bureaucratic red tape in their hometown? The director Caner Erzincan chose to cast his own brother Soner as the boy who has the Down syndrome in the film. I think it takes guts to use someone who really has the Down syndrome. For that matter, Soner seems to be only one who is pushing this movie ahead but Soner looks too old to be someone of 14. In an interview with the director, I read that Soner is actually 25! Caner Erzincan wants to show the audience how transforming cities take its toll on the peace of its dwellers. The movie was shot in Fikirtepe, one of the urban transformation centers in Istanbul. As small buildings are being demolished and superseded by obsessively massive projects, the city's close-knit traditional neighborhoods and shared public spaces are torn apart by a supposedly lively urban culture. Mr. Erzincan's bird's eye view camera work clearly tries to show that difference. Maybe those video pictures will help future generations see this juxtaposition of crude reality and lyrical pulchritude. Alas,while Caner Erzincan tries to tell the story of poor people who are relocated to high rise buildings on the outskirts of Istanbul, he chooses to tell about this transformation through stereotypical characters that classy Turkish films stopped using years ago. Here,we have a woman who's being transformed faster than urban renewal centers. At one point, the mother (Şükran Ovalı) seems bewildered because she's been stripped of her village. The man who is supposed to help the family turns out to be someone 'dirty'. He has to exploit the woman he's supposed to help. After the mother gets sexually abused, she's in shock. She can't say anything to her husband, she is absolutely helpless in a patriarchal society then we see her cheating on her husband without actually understanding how the heck she became like that. Some of the recent Turkish film makers in Turkish cinema tend to put lots of social issues together in just one film. They seem to talk about everything in one simple film. Mr. Erzincan avoided that in his directorial debut but in Yeni Dünya he seems to have put everything in a can. Repressed sex drives in a patriarchal society, low-income neighborhoods razed to make way for higher-end housing and superficial human relations, bureaucratic red tape in a country which is obsessed with urban development, the education of disadvantaged of people seem to have been put in the same can in one and half hours.
The film-makers aim to donate some part of the revenue to the Down Syndrome Foundation in Istanbul. This noble stance alongside with Soner's acting is probably the best thing about this film. Without high hopes, without comparing it to Mar you might like this film. I've seen it to support an independent film. I hope Caner Erzincan's third film will remind us of MAR more than Yeni Dünya.
The film-makers aim to donate some part of the revenue to the Down Syndrome Foundation in Istanbul. This noble stance alongside with Soner's acting is probably the best thing about this film. Without high hopes, without comparing it to Mar you might like this film. I've seen it to support an independent film. I hope Caner Erzincan's third film will remind us of MAR more than Yeni Dünya.
