Metin Erksan

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Metin Erksan’s most controversial film, Kuyu/The Well (1968), considered as one of the classics of Turkish cinema, is a rural drama that focuses on a relationship, founded on male obsession and female resistance, which culminates in tragedy.

From an artistic point of view, the film is one of the masterpieces of Turkish cinema. The minimalist narrative works in repetitions; the characters of the two protagonists who are both loners in an indifferent world are developed meticulously and with special concern for human psychology; societal dynamics are sharp; and the characters that are offsprings of such a society very accurately drawn. The photo­graphy and the camera angles are beyond reproach. However, the film’s graphic display of male brute power is controversial.Read More »

Mehmet, who decides to take revenge on Ekrem and Reyhan as soon as he is released from prison, is forced to face facts he does not know.Read More »

An extraordinary interpretation of Hamlet from the phenomenal director of the Turkish Cinema: Metin Erksan.
In this presentation Hamlet is female and search vengeance of her father.
The relotionship of mother and son has a metamorphosis in that situation and force She-Hamlet to look for the lost father-and-daughter affection.
A foolish young girl, frenetic acts, glowing costumes, singing and dancing under expressionist camera angles.

Nominated for the Golden Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival , Intikam Melegi – Kadin Hamlet is Erksan’s latest work of cinema.Read More »

“Isn´t suicide an introverted desire to kill?”

The man wants to die and the woman wants to be famous. According to the man, there could not be a better plan than the woman killing him. This way the man will get his wish to die and the woman will become famous. The man tries to convince the woman: “You are my killer and my life source.” The gun finally goes off and the interrogation of the woman begins.Read More »

An obscure gem, a hidden treasure to international cinema lovers; “Sevmek Zamani” is one of the best movies in Turkish cinema history. This cult film still remains as a cinematic enigma for the new generation in Turkey. Praised for its B&W cinematograhpy and regarded as a masterpiece, film follows the aesthetic tradition of Antoninoni. Also resembles some of Bela Tarr’s works with its visual sensibility; “Sevmek Zamani” is an eclectic mixture of modernist themes (i.e. individual loneliness), metaphysics (the fight of good vs evil), and notions of Marxism like director’s some other works. Metin Erksan is one of the first Turkish filmmakers who saw cinema as an art form apart from a mass entertaining medium.
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Hamlet is now female and so are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Instead of taking place in England, this version takes at the beach where everyone plays volleyball in bikinis. An expressionist and surrealist adaptation of Hamlet from director Metin Erksan.Read More »

Winner of the prestigious Golden Bear at the 1964 Berlin International Film Festival, Metin Erksan’s wallop of a melodrama follows the machinations of an unrepentantly selfish tobacco farmer who builds a dam to prevent water from flowing downhill to his neighbors’ crops. Alongside this tale of soul-devouring competition is one of overheated desire, as a love triangle develops between the farmer, his more decent brother, and the beautiful villager the latter takes as his bride. A benchmark of Turkish cinema, this is a visceral, innovatively shot and vibrantly acted depiction of the horrors of greed.

Excerpt from Criterion
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Imdb:
An early realist classic from Turkey
15 December 2004 | by Tilly Gokbudak (Roanoke, Va.)
This is one of several Turkish films I have chosen to examine for a college thesis on Turkish cinema. I found a copy of it by chance from a CD store in the Aksaray part of Istanbul, the last time I was in Turkey. This is quite a film. The Revenge of the Snakes is a definitive precursor to the films of Yilmaz Guney, Zeki Okten, Ali Ozgenturk, and Serif Goren. It is a simple tale of a young couple and their little boy trying to live a suitable life in a small Anatolian village. This is a multi-layered film in which the antagonists include the mother in law, the new neighbors- with whom there is a serious land dispute, the town chiefs, and government officials who are oblivious to the needs and concerns of the average person. The snake is a symbol for the incoming troubles that will haunt the couple. The lead actor Fikret Hakan and the whole cast is brilliant. If you like Turkish films, this is one to see. It is perhaps as relevant to Turkish cinema as Rosellini’s “Open City” is to Italian cinema.Read More »