Lodos (2009) Reviews

• a good first film

  hasrettekin22009-04-28

  I have seen films' UK premiere yesterday and simply I would like to take my hats on the film crew. The movie unexpectedly strike me with its quality and I insist Lodos will be yet another example of the new Turkish film era of film making as an art that has started with Nuri Bilge Ceylan and continued with Faith Akin. Despite of being a first featuring film, the team obviously worked very hard and make something truly exceptional with their low budget and limited resources/time. For your intellect and reflective skills,not for your delight, a must seen film!! The movie is yet clearly not for those romantic film lovers who enjoys romantic Yesilcam films with Turkan Soray, Hulya Kocyigit but credit to Lodos and heyyooo news for the new Turkish Cinema that it thankfully and successfully presents a psychological trailer film which we do not have much of the example in Turkish cinema. Lodos almost giving a little taste of Haneke (Funny Games) type of trailer in the way that it handles the story and presents issue of violence and proves that yes, we can make trailers, too. .. It is a realistic film, with some tragic-comic ingenious sub-stories of violence and use of metaphors in particular in the aspect of domestic violence, violence against women, portraying abusive relationship in the perspective of physical, verbal and emotional abuse with some light references to the homosexual and trans-gender issues and the abusive hierarchy of the system in general in Turkey. I must say, Lodos is not only a road story journey as it is appears in its fragman but it is a film about abuse, control and power which has a great deal of reflection on the ground, in the reality of everyday life. This characters are not only suffering their own psychological anxieties, own experiences of abuse but they are also subjected to an abuse in the system. Unemployment, family pressures, political issues and its affects on to the individuals, criminal justice system, identity issues...they all forms their affects on the individuals with the combination of dysfunctional families backgrounds, occurrence of violence in home, issues of drugs, alcohol and substance misuse as a way of coping; strong feelings of secrecy, guilt, desperation and embarrassment then transforming into depression, aggresison, anxiety and identity crises ending up poor mental health and isolation from self and others. a promising feature in Turkish film industry. I am looking forward to discuss about the characters and it will certainly bring about many discussion on domestic violence, drugs, alcohol, substance misuse and mental health fields.

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