Güzel Günler Görecegiz (2011) User Reviews

Not sure why this won the Altin Portakal

[beyoglu · 3/10 · 8 December 2012]

**warning may contain spoilers** That 3 star vote is more for Anlat Istanbul, which was made seven years earlier and won the Istanbul Film Festival and was an inter-connected film about five characters and their lives over one day in Istanbul. The characters here are the same with a few slight changes. Both feature a man from the East of Turkey who doesn't speak Turkey for example. Both also feature the same actress Ozgu Namal. Anlat Istanbul is itself very much inspired by Paul Haggis' "Crash" which came out the previous year. While the idea of several characters crossing paths over the course of a day is certainly not a new concept, Jim Jarmusch for one uses the technique for many films. Rashoman and Pulp Fiction as well, though not over one day.

This film is alright, it's just odd to see a remake of Anlat Istanbul so quickly and with basically the same characters. People like saying Istanbul is cosmopolitan, but compared to cities like New York, London, and Paris, Istanbul is a cosmopolitan Turkish city. One sees people from all corners of Turkey, but rarely from any other country, save for Finnish executives who work at Nokia, or executives working for Coca-Cola. It would be nice to see a true mixture of people from all walks of life here including the African immigrants waiting to transit into Europe or the Levantin population of Italians living here for centuries. Sadly none of those people are featured in this film. There's a nationalistic nostalgia and people are yet only willing to focus on the Turkish and Kurdish lifestyles, branching out now and then to include gay or transvestite characters, as Anlat Istanbul does.

Good story, sure. And maybe someone will remake this in the next few years.

This movie could have been gritty real with fewer clichés and more depth...

[elsinefilo · 3 July 2012]

"To Better Days" focuses on the interrelated sets of situations in the lives of five characters. It is clear that the multiple intertwined narratives in the movie have been inspired by Iñárritu's hallmark non-linear story telling. Since the movie doesn't actually temper with chronology or zigzags between vast geographies but re-lived within the districts of Istanbul, it will make you remind you of another Turkish movie, namely Anlat Istanbul (Istanbul Tales.) To Better Days tells about five people whose paths crossing in ultimate vastness of Istanbul. Cumali (Bugra Gülsoy) is back in Istanbul after having done 14-year stint in jail. Apparently he was involved in an honor killing. He killed his own sister because his family wanted him to clear the family name. Ali (Barış Atay) , who used to be a professional boxer, had his license revoked because of illegal street fights he took. Boxing has never been his dream. All his life he did what his father wanted him to do. Now, he works as a car mechanic and he dreams of leaving the country for Europe with his girlfriend to have the life he's always dreamt about. Figen(Feride Çetin) ekes out a bare living by working in tailoring workshop. She had to run away from her family. Apparently, she was raped, unfortunately she was slandered, which in her case, she was the one to blame because of the honor code of her culture. Just like Cumali, she is originally from an Eastern village of Turkey which is mostly populated by Kurdish people, where homosexuality,adultery, any alleged act of female sexual misconduct, being the victim of a sexual assault etc can be perceived as reasonable grounds for being killed by relatives. İzzet (Uğur Polat) is the local chief who has been corrupted by the system. He's having issues with his marriage. Anna is prostitute of Slavic origin. She's probably one of the Russian women who are known in Turkey as Natashas whatever their names are, sometimes trapped as prostitutes in this country's growing sex trade although they are recruited at home with the promise of employment. When you think of all these characters in an interconnected metropolitan life, you feel that there can be good, complex story out of their simple but hard lives. The non-linear multiple storytelling strategy employed by Inarritu offers, at first, a puzzling scenario which leads you to ask questions. It just piques your curiosity. Out of the intricate, interlaced bit and pieces you shape up the ostensibly complex entirety. Instead of an intricate design, we have the simplest scenario here enriched by an honor killing tinctured with pangs of conscience and a love triangle which do not really sound original. I am tired of minimalist movies with scanty dialogue getting awarded at local festivals but foregoing artistic minimalism and going for the austerity of a more direct cinema language doesn't have to mean going backwards and making movies which are particularly evocative of the Yeşilçam era (the 1950s-1970s of Turkish Cinema). The story itself is not particularly complex and the way it's told in this multiple narratives is filled with stereotypes, clichés, and tropes. Turkish movie has treated the honor-killings( which has recently extended to men), and hopeless love triangles many times. They have been the main subject of so many prime-time TV series that they do sound like bland remakes now. They don't startle you; they don't make you ask questions, they just became a source of utter ennui. With a bit more creative storyline, this story could have been so much more real. I feel like all the great acting in the movie has been wasted. Nesrin Cavadzade as the Russian prostitute is just great. I don't know whether she would be that good if she wasn't of Azerbaijani origin but she played her part well enough. Still, I will be keeping sharp lookout for the next Hasan Tolga Pulat movie. This award-winning debut may have given the chance he's been expecting.