One of the greatest Turkish writers and a modernist
pioneer of the Turkish novel, Orhan Kemal, has
always been relevant. Kemal’s realist novels on
class differences and the poor side of Turkey have
left their mark on a period spanning two decades
after the early 1950s, now thought of as the golden
period in Turkish literature.
Meeting another great literary name, the “romantic
revolutionary” Nazım Hikmet, in prison in the early
1940s had a profound effect on Kemal’s literary
foray and social politics. He began writing poetry
and stories, eventually trying his craft in novels
and plays. Kemal was one of the first authors to
write about the working class, the alienation of
immigrants in big cities, mass urbanization and the
changing social structure of Turkey after World War
II. He shed a realist light and took a brutal look
at poor people living in dignity. Kemal’s stories,
novels and plays also lent a voice to working-class
women for perhaps the first time in modern Turkish
literature.
Now, one of his most acclaimed works, “72. Koğuş”
(The Prisoners), is making its journey to the screen
for the second time. Kemal’s 1954 play was first
made into a movie in 1987, with the late Erdoğan
Tokatlı in the director’s chair and veteran actors
Kadir İnanır and Halil Ergün in the leads. In 2011,
Murat Saraçoğlu directs Yavuz Bingöl, Kerem Alışık
and diva Hülya Avşar as inmates in “The 72nd Cell,”
the original title of the play.
Set in World War II, the film stars Bingöl as
“Captain” Ahmet of Rize, a prisoner who has been
inside for 10 years for murdering his father’s
murderers, and Alışık as Berbat, a prisoner for life
who’s been convicted for everything from murder and
extortion to gambling. Things take a turn for the
inmates when the captain receives a huge sum of
money from his forgotten and aging mother. In the
intricate power dynamics of the prison, Captain’s
role changes as he helps out friends and foes alike
with the money.
The screenplay by Ayfer Tunç, a popular female
novelist of a younger generation, takes the women’s
cell, barely seen in the original play, and makes it
an integral part of the film. Avşar plays Fatma, in
for 22 years for having killed her father-in-law for
attempting to rape her. Fatma’s small role as the
Captain’s object of affection in the play and the
first adaptation becomes a bigger, more crucial
character in the 2011 adaptation.
