“Personality” and other Turkish series that came as a surprise to Russians

They are called “dizi”, and they are unpretentious, like the simplest pop music. However, the unpretentiousness of Turkish serials has recently been more of a stamp than the true state of affairs. Of course, languid glances, volcanoes of passion and battles for love have not gone away. But sometimes they give an Emmy for it, which probably hints at the convertibility of the Turkish serial offer.

A bolt from the blue for many was the Magnificent Century, released in 2011. Four years and one hundred and forty-seven episodes of palace luxury and harem intrigues, which became the occasion for passionate debates about the historical accuracy of everything shown, and for outbursts of fanaticism in relation to the artists who played the main characters.

Our public had a chance to appreciate the Turkish TV series back in the early nineties, when the seven-episode “Korolok – a singing bird” was released on the screens. At the same time, the famous Latin American soap operas rattled on the screens, and then it seemed that all southern passions were about the same. But in the 2000s, the situation changed dramatically.

Turkish TV series occupy an enviable position even in the Latin American market, in many ways outperforming the local ones, primarily in quality. According to statistics, the cost of an episode of a series from Brazil or Argentina is several times less than what is invested in each episode in Turkey. Modern TVs very clearly demonstrate this difference, and the public, of course, chooses brighter and closer to world standards.

The reasons for the popularity of Turkish TV series in Russia are probably the spontaneity of our audience’s passions. A northern country that nonetheless likes to be hot. Turkish landscapes are like a good memory of the now very expensive vacation in Antalya. Finally, sultry handsome men, as if symbolizing ideal men, with whom there has always been an acute shortage.

Everyone who considers Turkish TV shows to be products that take exclusively exotic, perhaps, is somewhat right. In most of these projects, the characters fight for inaccessible or forbidden love, showing incredible naivety and ignoring all modern gender agendas. And also two-hour episodes and other surprising standards in many ways, such as the number of episodes. If there are a lot of them, then the project is successful, and if it is not enough, then it is completely unworthy of attention, although there are exemplary mini-series in the European-American serial industry, filmed for one season.

However, given the number of TV shows that are filmed in Turkey, it would be strange not to find a variety of branches in this stream. For example, “Black Love”, the same series that in 2017 received an Emmy in the nomination “Best Telenovela” and was shown in ten countries. On the one hand, gasp-sighs with a classic love triangle and feelings that develop against all odds. At the same time, one of the pinnacles of the genre and in many ways an exemplary melodrama. According to rumors, the film romance between the main characters was so passionate that the husband of the actress who played the fatal beauty was ready to burst with jealousy.

The recent series “Love in Show” is also a melodrama, but generously stuffed with humor, and not primitive Sitcom, but quite social, ridiculing both the strict prohibitions of traditionalists and the most liberal views on relationships. And if many are already accustomed to passion and suffering in the eyes of Turkish actors, then irony can be attributed to new emotions.

If it seems to someone that Turkish crime thrillers have more to do with parody than with a detective story, then the TV series “Personality” and “Cukur” may come as big surprises. In the first, an elderly man with Alzheimer’s syndrome suddenly turns into a merciless killer, and a female investigator wants to catch him. In the second, gangs of gangsters are fighting for a dysfunctional Istanbul district, and in terms of intensity of passions, all this resembles the best Italian projects of this genre.

In connection with the latest news regarding the Russian serial market, the topic of an alternative to the production that turned out to be inaccessible to us sounds louder than anyone else. But all these discussions are mainly for the sake of a red word. In Russia, the interest in Western TV series is incomparably lower than the demand for its own, and those who watched Netflix productions will find an opportunity to join it. It is unlikely that Turkish series will become an alternative to American or British ones. With all the multiculturalism, these are still different types of entertainment. Western in order to catch meanings. Oriental – mainly for relaxation, during which you can think less.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28843 dated August 10, 2022

Newspaper headline:
Cinema “all inclusive”