Turkish Film Festival - Sydney's supercinephile Barrie Pattison is somewhat nonplussed by STRANGER IN MY POCKET (Serra Yilmaz)

The Turkish Film Festival arrives at festival prices but without the glossy documentation to promote the feeling of an event. This leaves me torn between my curiosity about the films and my reluctance to plunge top dollar into experimenting.

Serra Yilmaz’ Cebimdeki Yabanci/Stranger in My Pocket is a polished entertainment with personable players whose Turkish film industry work is unknown in the English speaking market, though lead actor Çaglar Çorumlu did get to voice an Ice Age movie at one stage.

Anyone who has been following Italian movies will recognise Paolo Genovese’s 2016 Perfetti sconosciuti/Perfect Strangers.It appears that, like the Indian and Hollywood industries, Europe is into remakes of (mainly Italian comedy) hits and the new film manages to compete quite ably. 

Behind it we can see producer Ferzan Ozpetek, a major player in Italian cinema several of whose films (2007’s Saturno contro & 2001’s Le fate ignoranti) featured a performance from this film’s director Yilmaz and dealt with gay themes.

We start with close ups of the preparation of an elaborate (and appetizing) meal in the apartment of well to do couple Serkan Altunorak and Belçim Bilgin from which their teenage daughter excuses herself. Their friends gather for the event and to watch an eclipse - an element which has been lost here. They collect in the doorway to see who late arrival Çorumlu’s new squeeze is. 

On a bet (none too plausibly here either) everyone agrees to leave their cell ’phones on the dinner table in speaker mode - a Twenty First Century version of the traditional Truth Game. This reveals the seamy side of most lives, though the pair of sullen fathers emerge as good guys, despite first impressions.

The most alarming feature of the screening I attended came half way through where host Altunorak faces humiliation from a call he expects and swaps his lookalike ‘phone with Çorumlu. The incoming call reveals Çormulu is in a gay relationship which is then attributed to Altunorak. The Palace Central audience found his growing embarrassment screamingly funny. When I saw the Italian version, laughter faded rapidly as the awfulness of the situation bore down. 

I found sitting with the new crowd uncomfortable. Significantly the climax scene inPerfetti sconosciutiwhere Alba Rohrwacher tells Giuseppe Battison that he was right not to bring his lover into this group of terrible people has no counterpart in this version.

Well I’m not sure if noting this is discriminatory to gays, to Turks, to the makers or the audiences so, if you send hate mail, please take care. I don’t want to have to spend too much time on the spell checker.