Dag (2012) Reviews

• Insight in the Turkish soul

  jonga-629-7224342014-06-01

  Attracted by the high rating (7.6 at the time being) I watched this film which was probably mostly intended for Turkisch audiences. That was what made interesting for me: it gives some insight in the mentality of nowadays Turkey and it's attitude towards it's army. That attitude is very dualistic: on one side both protagonists are not happily becoming / being soldiers and life as a soldier on a mountaintop is not really glamorized, on the other side there is still the heroic dying ("where one will die a thousand will rise") and the father figure type commanders. On one side it is a modern, America type film on the other side quite dramatic and melancholic, which is maybe very Turkish. The visuals of the mountain landscape are beautiful, the characters are interesting, there is humor. The downside is that the military action is either quite unrealistic or Turkish soldiers are criminally lousy trained: going into a building in enemy territory WITHOUT taking your gun with you? You are almost out of ammunition and you do NOT take the AK 47 of the enemy you just killed? Take a rest in the snow and not on the nearby rocks where you are not such an easy target? I have never been a soldier but have seen enough war movies to know that these are not clever actions. The two protagonists pay dearly for these mistakes so the director was at least aware of that.

• So bad, that we will just wish you had your 80 minutes back.

  joao-madrid2017-08-02

  Almost everything on this film is wrong. Starting with acting that is amateur at its best level. The soundtrack is corny and completely over utilised. The history is a patriotic military nonsense that is perfect for the far right mindless viewers. The film is quite short and manages to drag and is not even able to hold your attention. The usage of emotional scenes from the soldiers between the conflict is a poor attempt of humanising shallow characters. The landscape of the mountain could had give us amazing shots was mediocrely filmed. What surprises me more is the high rating at IMDb, clearly product of bots or rating farms as this film is not up to any standards to be considered cinema.

• A very stupid movie

  TheBigSick2017-10-04

  The main plot line is the military operation involving the two protagonists. But at the same time, there are a lot of subplots told in flashback, which are about the family and life issues of the two protagonists before they join the army. I have to say these subplots are too long, really disturb the movie and interrupt the pace. Not only that, the action scenes are also quite stupid. The two protagonists do not even know the basic military rules. Instead of finding a cover, they just stand against the sniper and get shot.

• Something fishy is going on here....

  xacebop-094242018-07-02

  Out of nowhere I came across dozens of films I had never heard of before with ridiculously high imdb scores and the votes to back them up. This film "Dag" (2012) is among them. Do you ever see a movie's score beforehand and then go watch the movie with a bias towards thinking it will be good because so many others thought so? It might be shameful but I think we all have done it regardless of how small of an expectation it influences. With this film in particular I was extremely optimistic and in a hurry to watch it because the sequel - The Mountain (part 2) was rated significantly better. I was disappointed entirely. There were some areas of the film that were much better than the final overall score but those were few and far between. The first thing I noticed was that this film was shot with modern equipment and looked like something that might come out of Hollywood as opposed to a lot of times foreign films are a generation or two back and their film quality looks comparatively worse than what is the current standard by about a decade. I was surprised by this, off to a good start. Right off the bat it hits you, this film is trying to speak to YOU, the audience. Ingrained within its dialogue is nothing short of propaganda. The overly dramatic death scenes; The main character, despite having significant financial resources and a woman he loves is just like NOPE, I am going to make my family proud and prove them wrong and go join the obligatory military duty - so they break up. This might be believable but the manner in which they did it exhibited no logic beyond the character trying to "prove" something to his family (why?). Ok not a big deal, I can give them that. The next part really pissed me off. One of the more experienced officers is running along a ridge where there is one sniper shooting at the squad (not a very good one) and instead of evacuating along with the other men he stops dead in his tracks and walks toward the sniper and shouts out some obligatory nationalistic phrase before he is shot and killed in an overly dramatic fashion. This course of events would be required to set up the plot for the rest of the film, however the manner in which it was executed was overtly tangible and really changed whatever predisposed expectations I had from the imdb reviews. So far, we're about 10 minutes in. The story continues in the same manner with scenes being executed seemingly just to set up the plot of the film: two men are stranded and must hold out against terrorists (maybe?) who are in control of a strategic radio tower on top of a mountain. Upon reaching their destination they find the tower seemingly abandoned until... surprise! an enemy combatant is inside (watching tv). An overly dramatic scene plays out in which the main character is pinned down and the enemy soldier is slowly trying to press his knife into the hero's heart. As he does this, he whispers: "Shhhhh....". Well now that looks familiar... In fact, it is an exact ripoff of the film Saving Private Ryan, albeit with no emotional response whatsoever from the audience. Truth be told, it was embarrassing to watch. At this point in the film there was no going back. The film was irredeemable in my eyes. Looking back on it, the film consists mostly of stolen content executed in a way that would be disrespectful to the original material. After this experience my eyes really opened up to what was going on. Turkish people are swarming onto this site in massive numbers and rating all of their movies 10/10. This is evident by going into the details of the votes of these films and seeing the origin and numbers of the location of where the votes came from. Because of this terrible experience the 6 or so other Turkish films which I intended to watch afterwards have long-since been removed from my mind. I will probably never watch another Turkish film as long as I live and that is such a travesty because it is not fair that other films have to suffer because of its inhabitants inflated the votes in order to... honestly I am not sure why. There is nothing to gain from doing this other than to promote the message embedded within the film - an unnecessarily nationalistic message for the citizens and to recruit soldiers to fight against "terrorists". DO NOT WATCH.

• Loss of innocence

  itirsoylu2012-12-03

  This exciting film is about the harrowing attempts at survival of two Turkish soldiers during a harsh blizzard near a communications station in volatile southeastern Turkey. Ambushed, with limited ammunition and without their commanding officers the two main characters, yuppie Oguz and the ill-educated streetwise Bekir, two young universally conscripted soldiers who dislike each other, it is well acted, well filmed and with a fresh unique premise. Filmed in a war documentary style with a minimalist but inventive approach it's a brutal, touching and visually striking story with situations observing courage under fire as well as the social divides in a uniquely militaristic country such as Turkey. Succeeding well beyond the producer's expectations, it probably is the most original and unexpected success in an otherwise dry Turkish film season.