Here I come, Constantinople
(Yes, yes, I know: it’s İstanbul, not Constantinople. But I too have been a long time gone, so there you have it.)
Büyü (2004)
What would you expect from a movie currently rated by IMDb users as the 22nd worst film of all time? Would you expect a thoroughly average, occasionally inspired horror flick? Hmmm?
You would?
Well then, dear reader, one of us is nuts. My entry in the Turkish Roundtable has me wondering if I’ve completely lost my critical standards.
Will Laughlin is the Braineater.« It’s Lyz’s “Get this crap off my hard drive” yard sale! All these films must go!
Comments
Comment from lyzard
Time: February 27, 2008, 7:11 pm
So are we assuming that all the negative voting is coming from Turkey? How widely distributed was the film? (I’d never heard of it until Will nominated it.)
Comment from Carl
Time: February 28, 2008, 6:57 am
Keith? Sixty-odd DECADES? The Ottomans didn’t even take over Byzantium until about then, and I do not think they brought film equipment with them.
Comment from KeithA
Time: February 28, 2008, 10:28 am
You know, Carl, I was trying to be nice and give you an extra “ty” at the end of the word six — but you just can’t accept a present can you? You just can’t accept a present!
Comment from Braineater
Time: February 28, 2008, 3:10 pm
You’re probably right about the home reaction, Keith; but then again, actual Turkish horror specialists, people who were supposedly working to gain some credibility for the genre in Turkey itself, have gone out of their way to trash the movie. That’s what really made me think I was losing my mind. And when you look at the IMDb voting trends, US-based users went 2:1 toward the Total Crap end of the spectrum (with a vote of 1 or 2 out of 10). Since the movie hasn’t been released here, that suggests that the US viewers were foreign horror junkies like myself… and if even THEY didn’t like it, then what else can I say?
And thinking of boob-related slaughter — that’s a good description of most horror films, actually — I agree with you about the precarious balance between East and West that the Turks must maintain; it seemed to me that the plot of Büyü served as a pretty good metaphor for that whole situation. The Turks don’t seem to agree, though, and I’m just not well-enough informed to try to press the issue.
By the way, on the subject of liberal Islam in Turkey, an interesting article came out this week.
Comment from KeithA
Time: February 28, 2008, 3:40 pm
I have the same reaction to fiery criticism of Buyu as I have toward the same type of criticism directed at many infamous whipping boys: if this is the worst movie you have ever seen, you haven’t seen nearly enough movies.
As for the article — would this be Islam’s King James Bible?
Comment from Carl
Time: February 28, 2008, 9:01 pm
Keith, when Jabootu anoints you as Minister of Proofreading, it becomes a holy duty to correct things.
Comment from Elizabeth the Ferret
Time: February 28, 2008, 11:52 pm
Man, I want to see this… (cries into her chocolate milk over the lack of a torrent for it)
Comment from Nathan Shumate
Time: February 29, 2008, 11:48 am
To hell with Buyu, I want to see the Turkish Daddy Day Care.
Comment from KeithA
Time: February 27, 2008, 11:40 am
I think the extreme negative reaction to Buyu has less to do with the particular pitfalls within the film itself and are, instead, a reflection of the fact that, traditionally and for the most part, Turkish audiences despise horror films in general. Pretty much every horror film that has been released in Turkey — all ten or so of them over the past sixty-odd decades — has been savaged by both critics and audiences alike. Buyu was probably doomed from the outset, and its position in the top thirty worst IMDB movies is attributable primarily to its being fresh in everyone’s mind, and the legendary over-reaction and general irrationality of IMDB polls and public.
Regarding Turkish Islam and skin: I think Turkey is the only majority Islamic country that also has a legitimate porn industry. Turks have been stuffing their movies with partial/fully nude women for decades now, and the country has yet to erupt into a frenzy of boob-related slaughter. I don’t envy Turkish leaders the task of existing with one foot in modern Europe and the other still in relatively primitive Central Asia, trying to satisfy the desire on behalf of a large population to live by modern European, secular or liberal Islamic and Christian standards, and an equally large population more dedicated to conservative Islamic values being influenced by events surrounding them.
There was a Meatballs 4???