Reviews

Because not everyone has finished watching Terzi Season 2, I will not go into detail about the subject of the series, but I will try to bring before you some aspects and elements that will make it easier for you to understand this project in which Cagatay Ulusoy played the masterly role of Peyami Dokumaci, a brilliant tailor who was initiated into this trade by his grandfather. There will be word spoilers, but not necessarily content spoilers.

I will start from the idea that: "We cannot identify complete happiness, the spark of hope, joy, and cheerfulness if we have not been unhappy at least once in our life.

Only in this way will we learn to appreciate every difficult moment that appears without news, and we will be able to overcome all the obstacles that appear in the way.

We can change the present, maybe the future (if we suspect exactly what awaits us), but we will never be able to replace the past.

The past was once present.

Starting from these personal reflections, which identify me as a viewer of this series, I tried to understand Terzi, through the depth drawn by the screenwriters to the characters. I will list some key elements of Terzi.

1. Peyami's dance in season 2 represents his rebirth, his return to the worldly and spiritual, a new way of ascent to God, love and desire for life, the return to the worldly, to the real, to the natural.

Dervishes are initiates of the Sufi path.

The whirling dance of the dervishes unites the mind, soul, and body and brings them into complete harmony.

The whirling dervish is the fundamental condition of our existence: everything is in constant motion; everything is a continuous evolution.

When Peyami is determined to face his fears and oppressive past, he will step into the sacred places where he will dance, faithfully following Turkish customs. The peace and calm conveyed through dance and music will soothe his soul and bring him back to the light.

2. Another signal of Peyami's rebirth is his grandfather's story about the bird Sinurgh, considered a faithful, sacred, immortal bird. Simurgh means healing, life, rebirth, Divinity, and Wisdom, and this story will follow Peyami years from now when life's path will be strewn with obstacles.

"You have to be ready to be reborn at any time, even if you don't know where to start," Peyami will say in a meditation.

His grandfather knew how to look deep into his grandson's soul, and throughout his life, he had a lot of useful advice for him.

The Sinurgh bird can be associated in our series with a multitude of burdens carried on the shoulders by Peyami, since a small child. If for most children the father has a defining role in shaping them as people, in the father (Mustafa)-son (Peyami) relationship, things were the other way around. Mustafa, played with great skill by actor Olgun Simsek, was Peyami's playmate and by no means the person to guide him on how to follow his destiny. For Peyami, Mustafa represented a childhood full of frustrations, fear, and ironies from schoolmates, the dream of leaving home and following his grandfather's job, and the dedication to this job, because only in this way could he stay away from his father.

3. Starting from the story of Gulseren Budayicioglu, screenwriters Rana Mamatlioglu and Bekir Baran Sitki tried to penetrate the souls of the characters, building an action that supports the idea that people are always given a second chance to wake up to reality, for to recover from the lethargy into which they were plunged, some from childhood, others at maturity. Thus, we will enrich ourselves spiritually and we will be able to tear down the walls that have been erected around us in moments of wandering. Let us be aware that when God closes a door, he always leaves an open window for us. It is important to know how to escape in time from the darkness into which we plunged without our will.

For Peyami, an open door to escape from the darkness that had engulfed him was Cemre.

Although she is a controversial character for many, she will actually be a kind of guardian, who will enter his life tumultuously but exit quietly, the moment he sees Peyami fending for himself, that he started to practice the job that he loves, but above all, that he reconciled and accepted the fact that his father has the mind of a child. We will probably only meet Cemre this season because she played her role well, and her words forced Peyami to take the act of falling into the inner abyss. They forced him to choose between really living or pretending to live. They led him to meditate and listen to the inner voice hidden in his heart by the call of the helpless father, who calls his name as if to wake him from a deep sleep. Cemre's counsels with a view to his fall on all planes, forced him to open his eyes to his father, at the moment when he wished to die. Sometimes, in order for people to be taken out of the numbness, from the darkness, it is good to be awakened to reality with the help of shocking facts, which will bring them down to earth (exactly as it happened in Delibal, when Baris realized after Fusun's motorcycle ride, that he could have killed her). That's exactly what it's about.

Cemre has shocking words for Peyami, even though she is included in that plan as well. She could die too because she was in that car. On the way out of the restaurant, Cemre asks for Peyami's car keys, as he had drunk too much that evening. His refusal clearly shows that he did not care about anyone, not even about his own life, so this is the reason for the suicide analysis brought to the plan by Cemre. She herself had experienced many such moments.

For many people in a situation similar to Peyami's, death was setting in bit by bit. Peyami had become a ghost, a heartless man who chained his father, who scolded him and badmouthed everyone. He had immersed himself in alcohol before he met Cemre.

He fires his loyal workers and speaks badly to the housemaid who took care of his father.

For Peyami, Cemre is like a punching bag, in which he vents all his pain and frustrations. And Cemre accepts this, although he knows that Peyami loves Esvet. Cemre makes all these compromises, knowing that she will never be loved by Peyami. She doesn't have any jealousy against Esvet, on the contrary, she covers them in front of Dimitri, many of the mistakes she makes. It is these aspects that for some are unimportant, for Peyami they matter and in the end, he thanks them.

Cemre, played by the actress Berrak Tuzunatac, is one of my favorite characters. Despite the scenes where alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and sex abound, Cemre is a woman who does not ask much from life, but who has a good soul and supports Peyami from the shadows to accept his father. Cemre's character is different from Esvet's, she is a volcanic person with a lust for life, but her love for Mustafa, Peyami's father, is sincere and selfless, even if it seems otherwise in the eyes of others. She congratulates Peyami when he invites his father to breakfast for the first time.

"I'm proud of you", says Cemre to Peyami.

Thus, she is the being who suggests to Peyami the detachment from the past and the acceptance of reality.

Bringing lifebuoys his son (Peyami) and ex-wife (Kiraz) will be there to save him from never going to the bottom of the water and he will have to get used to the idea that he will always have support, but mainly, to stop being afraid of water, of things he has never experienced before. He advises him to learn to swim: "You can't be afraid forever! I was also afraid at first, but I found out along the way that fear didn't help me at all. Here it is about the idea of not giving up when someone is struggling, but above all the idea of moving on, of trying new things is brought to the fore.

4. The appearance in Peyami's life of his mother Kiraz, (played by actress Evrim Alasya), even if under a different name, is another key factor. This has helpful tips. Thus, she suggests Peyami get rid of the poison in him by working. Both Peyami's mother and himself are lying. She, through a false identity, and Peyami saying that Mustafa is the brother of an employee: Of major importance will be the words of Kiraz (Peyami's mother), which will open an uncomplicated way for Peyami to love her father. "People like Mustafa are angels, and people who understand that and take them under their wing share kindness and beauty." These words will be a landmark for Peyami and will wake him up to reality, causing him to realize that he does, in fact, love his father. The man he hid all his life, the man he was always ashamed of, will become the most important person in his life. His mother instills in him the idea that he must never forget where he started from and the reason, he followed his grandfather's profession.

5. All the characters have a hidden story and the story of Dimitri, played by Salih Bademci, who had a childhood marked by a tyrannical father, who punished him for the slightest mistake, is just as shocking.

"In life, winners don't feel sorry for anyone, not even themselves." For Dimitri, rebirth is represented by the presence in his life of Esvet, played by Sifanur Gul, who will help him emotionally to escape from the past. At the moment when Dimitri destroys in front of everyone the crate in which he had been imprisoned by his father as a small child, Esvet congratulates him and says (just as Cemre had said to Peyami): "I am proud of you".

Esvet, however, helps complete Peyami's family by discovering Kiraz. It's the noblest thing he's done in season2.

Life is like a sheet of paper, which can break at any second. Hence the title of this film, chosen so carefully. Mucadele Cizmazi Street (Alley of Survival) was the key point of the whole action. If initially, this film had this very name, later, by changing the title to Paper Lives, it reached exactly the message that was to be sent to all viewers. On the streets and abandoned by his own mother at the age of 8, the child Mehmet Ali masterfully played by the young Turkish actor, Çagatay Ulusoy, fails to overcome the emotional trauma caused by the abandonment of his mother. The very name Mehmet Ali, which we will find only towards the end of the film, suggests the existence of two parallel lives. Mature Mehmet, lived through the eyes of the child Ali, in fact, one and the same person. In addition to the fact that all their lives, street children have dreams that they will never achieve, some of them wake up to reality and discover the truth they need, and others, will deepen in depression or vain hopes. The first listed, are the children who will overcome their dreams and will continue to lead a routine existence, accepting that they no longer have parents. Others, especially Mehmet, will delve into the illusory world from an early age and become ill along the way, going through all the states of anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. As he gets older, the hallucinations come back and settle more and more often in his mind, foreshadowing the gloomy end only towards the end, when we realize that in addition to kidney disease requiring a transplant, a severe form of mental illness has since taken refuge in his mind which will changes his attitude and behavior depending on the hallucinations caused by unfulfilled goals. Mehmet, could be happy in those moments when Ali, (played by the wonderful Emir Ali Dogrul), enters through the door of the mind in his life, but also, in short time, extremely dangerous with him and those around him. He's determined to live, pursuing one extreme or the other. The only ones who were really close to Mehmet were Gonzales' friend, played by the actor Ersin Arici, and Uncle Tahsin, the man who took care of him, played by the actor Turgay Tanülkü. They understood his mental state, which was constantly deteriorating, and did not allow that he to be ridiculed by the other street kids. A piece of paper can be white, blank, or full of notes, which can be memories, traumas. Like a diary. A parallel between luxury and poverty is always made through the eyes of the mind by each of us. The poor man, longs for a warm place and a better financial situation, and the rich man, from time to time, takes a look at those who need help. An actor who metamorphoses into every role is Cagatay. Yes, for those who don't know him, his cry can be annoying, but I assure you that this cry exists all over the world in poor neighborhoods. If we reduce everything to silence and the lack of fatality, then we have mistaken the place where the action takes place. Ali's breaking of the photo was, in fact, the signal that Mehmet would soon find out the truth about his childhood, the signal that it would all end, even if he tried to reconstruct the picture with duct tape. A sick man cannot be happy, he can only imagine that he will be happy. This is why Ali enters Mehmet's imagination. But being only imagination, he can't stay with him for long, because all dreams can be dispersed at any moment. Hence those sudden transitions from happiness to anger and sadness. This is where man's inability to change the past comes in, because the past was once a present. And an 8-year-old child cannot change his destiny. The destiny of a child can only be changed by mature people. Every child clings to a mature man, in whom he puts his hope. And Mehmet, a mature man, failed to change anything because he reversed roles. He clung to his own destiny, but through the eyes of the child Mehmet Ali. That is, the mature man Mehmet, returned to the past through the eyes of his mind, and the despair that he could not be saved determined him to have all those reactions of anger, helplessness and deep sadness. We can change the present, maybe the future (if we know what awaits us), but we will never change the past. The loop of time is not valid for sick and poor people, who survive by miracles. An unhealed wound causes bleeding and pain. The pain makes the scream go away. Çagatay Ulusoy for me was magnificent, full of feelings that he gathered in his chest and heart , in his imagination, as real as his own existence. An existence of Mehmet that he would have liked to turn into the dream of reuniting with his family. Feelings of love, hate, deep suffering, terror, pain and illness, imaginary happiness all this, Cagatay drew them, like no one else. I was very impressed by all the feelings of helplessness and frustration that Cagatay Ulusoy portrayed through the role of Mehmet. An unhealed wound is shouted! And Mehmet shouted! The actors were magnificent and professional, talented. A film that touches souls and moves even the most hardened hearts. Cagatay's action is exactly as expected, bright and full of emotion. This actor lives every role, as if it were his last moment in life. Director Can Ulcay and screenwriter Ercan Mehmet Erdem, along with talented and versatile actor Cagatay Ulusoy, made the surprise finale, which few expected. Understanding this film can only be done at the end. Only then can you write a review. Mehmet, a child who learned to be good by sharing with others the cakes obtained from people of the same social condition, always hoped that the money obtained from collecting garbage, cardboard, would be able to bring his mother to him. Bringing little Ali into his imagination is the most beautiful experience for him. In those moments, he was happy, because he felt that if he changed Ali's destiny, he would change his own destiny. Exciting moments are those in which the mother's face detached from the picture from which she did not separate even at her death, always appears in her way, in the form of a mother worried about her child's illness, or taking the form of a compassionate medical sister, who has take care of Mehmet when he's in the hospital. The whole film takes us to illusory heights, but the ending wakes us all to reality and is certainly a slap in the face to all those who, throughout the film, considered Mehmet's excessive outbursts and cries exaggerated. We cannot fail to notice that society marginalizes poor, homeless, dirty people. This is the case all over the world, few people are really looking for some form of help for those who cry out desperately just for themselves. Those people are not heard, their cry is almost silent for those around them and they are unseen by those who have a good social condition. Ali, is the little Mehmet who wants to climb the traces of the past and realize his priority dream that he had recorded in a diary since he was just a child. While Gonzales (Gonzo) had given up and forgotten about this wish, Mehmet, who has become an adult, continues to hope that he will respect exactly those wishes made on his birthday. The birthdays of street children are also a form of escape from everyday life and to give an alarm signal to everyone not to be forgotten, even if they do not have a real name and do not know the day they were born. Ali embodies Mehmet at the age of 8 and, like him, faces drugs, he was trapped in this trap by those who trick him into finding his mother. The only one who tries to awaken Mehmet to reality is old Tahsin, who suffers because of this helplessness of his favorite. More than likely, this film raises an alarm against people's indifference, bringing to the fore this story of the child's love for his mother, who, although he abandoned him, forgave her, finding in his own subconscious, all sorts of existential excuses, for his mother. The image of the last minutes is disturbing when we realize that the imagination can cause destructive damage to the person suffering from schizophrenia, depression, or another mental illness that replaces reality with fiction. Only then, we realize that the actor Çagatay Ulusoy did not exaggerate at all through his feelings and that these dramas really exist. In vain some tried to infer this film by saying that it is too sad, too pathetic ... Sadness is part of the world we live in, only we prefer to ignore it. We have seen these people, we have heard them in our countries, but we have never tried to understand them. And this message sent by Mehmet to the whole world, turned into screaming and crying, because the inability to face a world in which the lonely and poor are ignored by society and officials, hurts like an open wound. For me, this film was also a life lesson, not just a psychological film shocking and sad. This film is worth seeing until the last second ..