Acting

REBOOTED | Short Film
timtimfed

This is a cute little film about an out-of-work actor, and generally about modern life. 

It reminded me that I've been meaning to say something about Behzat Ç. We're about halfway through the 96 episodes and I've noticed a few things. For one, the bit players are a bit stiff. Brought up on fancy Hollywood police dramas, you expect all roles to be well played by the actors. Not so much in Ankara, Turkey, population 6 million. The bit players recite their lines, but that's about it. We're starting to see a bit more emotion from these guys now that we are in the second or third (or fourth) season. It's hard to tell, Netflix lumps them all in one. The introduction changed a few episodes ago, so it's got to be at least the second season.

Most of the lead characters are unpleasant, at least on the surface, but after watching for so long you begin to detect some better inner qualities, and they are pretty consistent. So the lead actors are doing a pretty good job, and I think that's what keeps bringing us back. Plus we have multiple plot threads running in parallel. There is always the murder de jour that needs to be solved, but there are also long term investigations that pop up at irregular intervals. And then there are the characters personal lives, and some of those are pretty entertaining.

And then there are the hot women. We started with Gonul, a middle aged nightclub singer and longtime friend of Behzat. Then there was Bahar, Behzat's ex-girlfriend, a mainstay until recently. She has moved to Istanbul and is out of the picture, for the moment anyway. She's been supplanted by Ersa, the prosecutor who has moved up from handling Behzat's murder cases to handling Behzat on a more personal basis. Now we have another hottie moving in. I think her name is Ona. She's the head of the narcotics squad and is a pretty tough cookie. Unlikely to find such a good looking women in that role in real life, but that's TV for you.

Then there is the long suffering Eda. She is a young women who has gotten a job with the murder squad. She keeps hoping to get some field work, but the couple of instances when she did go out in the field did not work out too well. Turkey is still male dominated society. Many men still think a women's place is in the home and if there are out wandering around they must be whores. Progress is being made, but it's still pretty sketchy. So Eda is stuck in the office searching for evidence on the internet and fielding phone calls. She has become somewhat indispensable in that role.

The long term investigations keep running into stone walls in the upper levels of government. Back in 1980 there was some political unrest and brutal repression. 

The country's tumultuous transition to multiparty democracy was interrupted by military coups d'état in 1960 and 1980, as well as by military memorandums in 1971 and 1997. - Wikipedia

It sounds kind of like Argentina with the right wing death squads and the left wing commies battling it out. Erdoğan may not be a great leader by western standards, but maybe that part of the world can only be ruled by a strongman. I blame Genghis Khan for being a successful role model (not a good one, but a successful one) and destroying the idea of compromise in Asia.