After slogging through 72 gut-wrenching episodes of this Turkish series, the whole thing ends without an ending. Prepare to feel completely manipulated.....
DEFINITE SPOILERS.....
Although there are some worthy aspects to Çalikusu, chief of which is all the stunning acting of the two principals Fahriye Evcen and Burak Özçivit as well as many others, the show adds up to some less than satisfying entertainment. It contains moments of great poetic and musical beauty, which I'm guessing are hints of the treasure of traditional Turkish culture, and also the potential of a beautiful love story.
Set against these positives is some tediously repetitive theme music, which, although pleasant for one or two episodes, has long outworn its welcome by the time you've seen 10 episodes, and I'm being kind.... Parts of the story are ridiculously slow, as if the directors are simply filling in time slots on TV and stretching out the story as long as is humanly (or inhumanly as the case may be) to do so. I'd say you could make a really nice series covering the story perfectly in half the running time.
What annoys me more than anything however is the "will they-won't they" get together tension. Is there a final split at the end of this series? It seems that there is, and if so, then it's just plain cruel to the viewer as well as not really believable. The main character, Feride (the Lovebird), abandons her wedding at the last minute because of some incompletely revealed supposed infidelity of the groom. In case you are still reading but haven't seen the show, the only indiscretion comes during a drunken moment after Feride has decisively broken up with her beau Kamran, and so is not an infidelity at all. Hearing a reference to some vague liaison is enough for the main character to chuck a lifetime's trust and relationship without even confronting her fiancé to get his side of the story. She doesn't even ask the "other woman" Azelya what exactly happened, nor does Azelya, who supposedly likes Feride better than all the other characters in the story, bother to enunciate or clarify the fact that Kamran is not at all guilty of infidelity. This sort of impulsive and shallow act the heroine Feride brags is her finest achievement. At this point, I've lost all respect for the character, and thus ends all of the viewers long-awaited hopes for any sort of final happiness or resolution.
In fact, her behavior reminds me a lot of the last Turkish series I viewed, Kurt Seyit ve Sura, where a heroine casts off her beau of several years without giving him the chance to defend himself, for unfaithfulness after she had already given him the boot.
This seems to be a theme in Turkish drama that makes no sense, rendering the heroines repellent. Do these women expect to tell a man "it's over" several times, then get miffed if the guy goes off with another girl in an attempt to drown his sorrows? Can this behavior really be considered so unforgivable? Why doesn't someone tell these women they have no right to make demands on a lover they have rejected. I can't understand it at all, and despite being a woman, I find myself on the hero's side yet again.
The ending is loose enough with the hero waiting at a train station, the clock hits 11:30, "Is she coming?" --we never find out! I felt cheated completely, and fairly angry at having spent so much time watching it. Considering that so much of the story consists of evil people plotting to foil the central lovers, which is of course infuriating, you'd think at least they could let us have a sweet wind-up after all the suffering.
If there are any knowledgeable people here on Turkish drama, please let me know if this is typical for Turkish TV series, because if so, I don't want to spend anymore time on long long long agonizing but doomed love affairs....
DEFINITE SPOILERS.....
Although there are some worthy aspects to Çalikusu, chief of which is all the stunning acting of the two principals Fahriye Evcen and Burak Özçivit as well as many others, the show adds up to some less than satisfying entertainment. It contains moments of great poetic and musical beauty, which I'm guessing are hints of the treasure of traditional Turkish culture, and also the potential of a beautiful love story.
Set against these positives is some tediously repetitive theme music, which, although pleasant for one or two episodes, has long outworn its welcome by the time you've seen 10 episodes, and I'm being kind.... Parts of the story are ridiculously slow, as if the directors are simply filling in time slots on TV and stretching out the story as long as is humanly (or inhumanly as the case may be) to do so. I'd say you could make a really nice series covering the story perfectly in half the running time.
What annoys me more than anything however is the "will they-won't they" get together tension. Is there a final split at the end of this series? It seems that there is, and if so, then it's just plain cruel to the viewer as well as not really believable. The main character, Feride (the Lovebird), abandons her wedding at the last minute because of some incompletely revealed supposed infidelity of the groom. In case you are still reading but haven't seen the show, the only indiscretion comes during a drunken moment after Feride has decisively broken up with her beau Kamran, and so is not an infidelity at all. Hearing a reference to some vague liaison is enough for the main character to chuck a lifetime's trust and relationship without even confronting her fiancé to get his side of the story. She doesn't even ask the "other woman" Azelya what exactly happened, nor does Azelya, who supposedly likes Feride better than all the other characters in the story, bother to enunciate or clarify the fact that Kamran is not at all guilty of infidelity. This sort of impulsive and shallow act the heroine Feride brags is her finest achievement. At this point, I've lost all respect for the character, and thus ends all of the viewers long-awaited hopes for any sort of final happiness or resolution.
In fact, her behavior reminds me a lot of the last Turkish series I viewed, Kurt Seyit ve Sura, where a heroine casts off her beau of several years without giving him the chance to defend himself, for unfaithfulness after she had already given him the boot.
This seems to be a theme in Turkish drama that makes no sense, rendering the heroines repellent. Do these women expect to tell a man "it's over" several times, then get miffed if the guy goes off with another girl in an attempt to drown his sorrows? Can this behavior really be considered so unforgivable? Why doesn't someone tell these women they have no right to make demands on a lover they have rejected. I can't understand it at all, and despite being a woman, I find myself on the hero's side yet again.
The ending is loose enough with the hero waiting at a train station, the clock hits 11:30, "Is she coming?" --we never find out! I felt cheated completely, and fairly angry at having spent so much time watching it. Considering that so much of the story consists of evil people plotting to foil the central lovers, which is of course infuriating, you'd think at least they could let us have a sweet wind-up after all the suffering.
If there are any knowledgeable people here on Turkish drama, please let me know if this is typical for Turkish TV series, because if so, I don't want to spend anymore time on long long long agonizing but doomed love affairs....