Gurbet (1959), p. 1

So I watched Gurbet a few days ago, and there’s certainly a lot to write about.

 

I know of a black-and-white Bollywood movie that starts with the same girl-becomes-boy premise, but I’m not sure whether it’s a remake, because what follows is quite over the top for an old-fashioned Hindi flick.

 Mualla Kaynak plays a housemaid named Aliye who is fleeing from police disguised as a boy, having stabbed her boss with a screwdriver for making sexual advances. She is pretty convincing in her metamorphosis.

 

Zeki plays one of those Istanbul  fishermen who sell fried fish off their boats. (And I love it how his voice becomes almost normal as he makes vague and sporadic efforts to sound like a working-class guy in his movies x-D). His character’s name is Zeki, as always.

 /Oh, and somewhere in the 8th minute they have a still from the wrong movie! How did Jean Marais get in here?!/

Aliye, who is now a street urchin called Ali, decides to earn some money by helping Zeki with his fishing, and falls for him right away. And here’s where this movie starts eating your brain.

 

Ali/Aliye is all over Zeki, throwing longing glances at him, “accidentally” touching him and following him everywhere. She also procures good football tickets for him and his two sidekicks. Having found out that she stole them, Zeki gets mad and gives Ali/Aliye a thrashing, saying: “I don’t wanna see you again, ever!” (Before that, his friends beat Ali/Aliye up for stealing money. Further into the film, Zeki will get mad again and hit her with his belt. Not your usual Osman Seden fare, what with all the abuse and exploitation.)

 

However, Zeki soon feels sorry for the poor orphaned boy and takes him to live with him in his quaint little house. And here’s when he founds out the truth--watch the drama:

/Do decent girls usually behave like that in old movies? Do they, I ask you? No, they don’t./

 

Later, though, they have a nice little party with a crate of beer, stuffed mussels, meatballs and a goose that Aliye stole—yet again—from Zeki’s neighbour.

The sense of well-being is so great that Zeki takes out his lute and they all sing a song called “My Handsome/Beautiful Doctor”, looking as mad as hatters. (Fellow foreigners can read more on the word “civan” in Orhan Pamuk’s “İstanbul: Hatıralar ve şehir” 8-).

To be continued--because if you thought this was all, you couldn't be more mistaken.