The Club - Turkish Drama

The Club | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix
This is a story about some of the people who work in a nightclub in Istanbul in the mid 1950s. In particular it is about Matilda, a jewish woman, and her daughter. It is also about a young jewish man who has abandoned the respectable career path chosen by his parents to become a nightclub singer.

It's pretty great. There is all the backstage intrigue in the nightclub, plus we have numerous conflicts between parent and child. I think just about all the major characters are on one side of one of these conflicts or the other. All this is done over a background of conflict between jews and muslims.

In 1942 Turkey imposed a ruinous tax on non-muslims. Matilda's father paid the tax, but that was not enough so he was sent to a labor camp along with her brother. Her mother had died some years before so Matilda was now essentially an orphan. Now she shoots someone dead and gets sent to prison. The story starts with her being released from prison in a general amnesty.

The singer has a dream of producing the most fabulous nightclub show in the world and he sells his idea to the nightclub owner, who has his own problems with his parents. Matilda eventually becomes his 'dresser' as she comes from a solid middle class background and understands western behavior and clothes.

The street scenes in front of the nightclub look like something from New York or L.A., almost too perfect to be believed. I think the main point is that it doesn't look like most of the rest of town where everything else happens.