My Father and My Son (2005)

Touches You

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

In order to study journalism at Istanbul University, Sadık leaves his village on the Aegean coast. This angers his father, Hüseyin, who wants him to study Agricultural Engineering so he can manage the family farm. During his years at university Sadık becomes a militant in left wing politics. Upon learning about Sadık's behavior, Hüseyin disowns him.However worse days are ahead for Sadık. In the early hours of the morning on September 12, 1980 Sadık's pregnant wife starts having contractions. The couple runs outside, but they can't find anyone to take them to the hospital, due to a curfew. The country has been taken over in a military coup. Sadık's wife gives birth in a park and dies, but their son, Deniz, possibly named after leftist youth icon Deniz Gezmiş, survives.Because of his political activities, Sadık is arrested, tortured, and imprisoned for three years during which time he loses his health. A few years after being released, he finds out that he will die. Having no other choice, he takes Deniz back to his family farm on the Aegean into the care of his mother and his father, who still does not speak to him. For Deniz, who is absorbed in the magical world of comic books, meeting his relatives on the farm is a new experience. There is his grandmother (Hümeyra Akbay) who drives a tractor and speaks on a short wave radio, his aunt Hanife (Binnur Kaya) who wears bracelets from her wrist all the way to her shoulder, and his uncle (Yetkin Dikinciler) who is a little naive.There is trouble in store, however, for Sadık and Hüseyin who must come to terms with their past and each other. Sadık also needs to face his first love, now married with two children, and the question of old friends. However his sickness takes over and Sadık passes away. His parents take over the responsibility of Deniz who comes into term with his father's loss.

On an individual basis, I like this movie because it includes everything about the family relationship as dram, sadness, humorous, compassion, hatred which are actually explain family relationship. Besides, movie starts from 1980 Turkish coup so we can learn Turkish history as well as we can understand difficult situation on that time in Turkey. Also, we can enter the child's world who is a motherless. I do not know someone who did not cry in this movie. I remember my grandpa and my father when I watch this movie, I remember my childhood with amazing soundtracks. Both "my father" and "we will meet again" songs are so emotional and mopey and these songs help me to trip down memory lane because all childhood memories are actually mopey for me.

Çağan Irmak is the face of the drama genre of Turkish Cinema. Always a simple narrative films. But deeply affect us. Because the handling is as simple as the fact of our lives. We see ourselves in the mirror while watching his movies in theaters. As all Çağan Irmak movies Babam & Oğlum has managed impressive as all this its is deeply.When the period is based on the script of the film we see the stressful times in Turkey. Family ties. Family relations in the Aegean region.At the end of the movie we see death of the father and we sad. But also we saw grandchild finally getting his grandfather. Also we are happy! That is what melodrama.

A huge hit on its first release in 2005, BABAM VE OĞLUM (MY FATHER AND MY SON) is an unabashed melodrama with the emphasis on excess.The story is a straightforward one: Sadık (Fikret Kuşkan) has to deliver his first child alone, when there is no one to take his wife Aysun (Tuba Büyüküstün) to the hospital. The wife dies, leaving Sadık a single parent on the first day of the military coup taking place in the Republic of Turkey on 12 September 1980.Time passes: Sadık is imprisoned and tortured for his political views; but on his release, he leaves İstanbul with his son Deniz (Ege Tanman) to return to the family home near İzmir. He receives a frosty welcome from his father Hüseyin (Çetin Tekindor) who has never forgiven Sadık for quitting his studies in agriculture in İstanbul and turning to politics instead. The rest of the movie focuses on the way familial relationships change, as well as how people cope with an unexpected tragedy.Director Çağan Irmak looks at the oppressive influence of the past on the present; not only does it affect relationships between Sadık and Hüseyin, but it significantly dictated Sadık's love-life too. Returning to his home-town, Sadık is at once attracted and repelled by its familiarity; those who have never left - even for a short time - remain blinkered in their world-views. On the other hand BABAM VE OĞLUM shows how families stick together in times of crisis, and can resolve their own problems so long as they are prepared to acknowledge them in the first place.The narrative contrasts Sadık's story with Deniz's imaginative fantasies, in which the little boy positions himself as the hero. In the first part of the film they can be read as a retreat from reality, as Deniz tries to cope with the trauma of moving to a new town and coping with a new life. By the end, however, he has discovered that such fantasies might change, once he grows up. They will remain fantasies, but they will fulfill a different function in his life.The film is full of major scenes of confrontation and reconciliation, with Irmak's camera-work designed to achieve maximum dramatic effect through the use of close-ups, panning shots, dissolves, and two- shots, complemented by a florid musical score (by Evanthia Reboutsika). Although the narrative celebrates excess - of emotion, of feeling and of reconciliation - it does not seem in any way forced. In fact, it is as convincing and emotion-provoking as the best Yeşilçam melodramas of the past. Clearly Irmak planned BABAM VE OĞLUM as an homage to the genre, and he accomplishes his task with élan. Definitely worth more than one viewing.