Yet again too much for its audience, who are not able to break their dogmatic historical beliefs.
Previous title from Ezop (Ezel AKAY), was a silver-screen remake of infamous shadow theater play, Hacivat and Karagöz suffered the same reaction. Turkish people are not ready to deal with the image of history in their minds, not ready to accept that the historical characters had their own lives. Movie of Hacivat and Karagöz was , although hammered with realism of Osman Hamdi, a historical comedy. Most of the Jokes were inspired by daily lives of ordinary inhabitants of modern Turkey. Of course there would be inconveniences, the plot is 14th century Bursa, the inspirations about Ottoman lives were from 19th century painter(Osman Hamdi Bey) and lives of modern Turks. Most critics were stuck with warrior dresses of women corps (no hijab), let me tell you some more, coffee was not invented until 2 centuries later, and the best one till middle of 15th century Call to prayer was in Turkic(hope i am not insulting your beliefs). Why didn't anybody criticize this? Although i do not refuse poor performance of some actors,but the rest were superb.
Critics about 7 kocalı Hürmüz, is surprisingly centered on costumes and decorations, which i fell in love at first sight. As much as Hacivat and Karagöz used realist aspects, 7 Kocalı Hürmüz used surrealism of Ottoman miniatures, which left a taste between Smurffs and Simpsons in my cerebrum. Especially 19th century Istanbul was hilarious(much unlike 1001 nights view a western audience would guess, a Turkish would demand), Costumes were extremely surrealist( except for old men in tea garden and handsome Medic),even German Pasha was a mere clown. But hey we are back to comedy genre.
Ezel was mistaken in one point. Trade, mother of all evil, Turkish people wouldn't like(cos they wouldn't understand) such complexity in jokes, set and costume design, and reviewing history from an angle different than they "want to" imagine. They would want to see cheap productions(and cheapest humor) like Maskeli Besler. Another commercial failure for him and for Turkish Cinema.
Perhaps i am looking from an engineer perspective(Ezel is also an engineer), I loved the movie as it is now, and i think both movie and sound track are a must have. It took me to my childhood, as if i was reading Alice in Wonderland, or an Ökkeş story once more, watching my favorite cartoons (not excluding Tom and Jerry), and the best songs from my baby brother. This is more valuable than priceless.
