Babam Ve Oglum

My Father My Son

During the 1950s to the early 70s Turkey was a thriving film industry that created up to 250 films a year. This period, called Yeliscam, was the third largest industry at the time. During this period, producers and audiences each wanted films that created a profit and gave immense entertainment. Since the Yesilcam industry was shaped by the use of genres and star powers it gained commercial success with its audiences and formulas of storytelling. It also replicated or recreated films from Hollywood and surrounding European countries. One of the most popular and powerful genres of Yesilcam was the melodrama. The family and women being the main audience of Yesilcam, mot films were about the split between families and the conflicts between heterosexual couples. My Father My Son a film directed by Cagan Irmak is one of the most successful films in Turkish box-office history. It is considered a modern film within the genre of the melodrama. The film follows the life of a man named Sadik as he struggles to reconcile his relationship with his father and deals with the experiences that have shaped his life. The film brings together Sadik, his son and his father, bringing together three different generations and viewpoints. Through its used of formulaic concepts, characters and plotline the film fits within the genre of a melodrama yet in relation to the history of the Turkish melodrama it echoes of past films while still being modern.

The melodramas of the Yesilcam era featured films that dealt with romantic relationships, social values and economic differences. Through these themes the films depended on situations such as love, opposition, revenge, coincidence and the expression of feelings. The affects of this period and films that were created can be seen in the films created in the present day. The film My Father My Son or Babam Ve Oglum is considered a melodrama because it follows the devices that define the genre. In doing this, it fits the context of a film that would be considered to be apart of the melodrama. Characters are full of stereotypical roles such as the many-talented and loving grandmother, the naÐ"Їve uncle, the aunt-in-law who is overly dressed and comical and other colorful characters. There is also a balance of the comical and emotional. Scenes filled with intense emotion and sorrow are followed by scenes of comedy. This experience for the audience is typical of the melodrama genre because they experience an intense flux of opposing emotions. There are also many emotional situations that are conveyed through voice-overs and flashbacks. The death of the mother, Sadik's chronic lung disorder, the arguments between the father and the son are scenes that evoke feelings of sorrow and anger. But the biggest conflict the film deals with it the relationship between the father and the son. As a political activist during and after the 1980 military coup of Turkey, Sadik returns from prison and brings his son to his hometown so that he may fix his relationship with his father and face his own struggles. Erdogan and Gokturk describe the Turkish melodrama as one where, "Ð'...the family splits up due to some kind of misunderstanding or intrigue, but then reunites at the end thanks to the efforts of the children". This film rings true to this convention because the Sadik and Hasan only reconcile through their relationship and love for the little boy Deniz. The melodrama as a genre also has many common narrative and visual conventions. Yet, while it is defined as a genre that is comprised of a collection of codes that are set in many different themes, it is these devices that are essentially used attached to a narrative and then transformed to fit the structure it is attached to. Themes such as coincidence, chance, love, missed chances and the use of audio and visual codes, stereotypical characters and other devices serve to help the narrative of a film, not create it. In this way, My Father My Son is a film that while it uses the conventions of