Vavien (2009)

A reckless electrician, who is struggling with debt, decides to kill his wife and use her savings as a way out. His plan takes an unexpected twist when his loving wife, comes back from the dead to be with her family.

Vavien has an intriguing theme and stands tall as one of the successful, even though not one of the best, examples of magical realism in Turkish cinema. Taylan Brothers' touch on the movie creates an engaging viewing experience and Atilla Ozdemiroglu's mischievous score takes you to a magical world and accompanies you within each step you take.

Engin Gundaydin's and Binnur Kaya's acting is undeniably believable. Both never fail to deliver the emotion in each scene. Although, it is safe to say that this is rather an easy movie for both of the talented actors of recent Turkish cinema.

The movie presents itself as a slice-of-life character study and it does a pretty good job on that. Characters are gripping and all are distinguishable from one another. However, the movie falls flat on creating a coherent storyline with actual stakes and a strong protagonist. The protagonist, Celal, is a passive character throughout the movie unless what he is set to do is something dark such as meeting with strippers as a married man. Hence, this gives the audience a character/hero who is hard to relate and look up to.

As there is no actual antagonist, Celal, fails to change actively, therefore his change can be perceived as going through a mild stockholm syndrome after failing to accept the consequences of stealing the money and gets stuck in a life which he hated in the first place. Furthermore, Vavien tries to but misses almost all of the universal beats and plot points of a story, therefore, it gets confusing and unfocused from time to time.

Having said that, the movie, still, is a timeless piece and is a great example of character building. For an interesting and different take on storytelling, it can be recommended.

Fmovies: The bitter facing of the good and the bad.The story is told in a different way. Normally the story line starts with introduction followed by development and then the conclusion. but in this movie this is a little bit different and this makes the movie unique. In this movie the order is like this: introduction, conclusion, development. A short introduction, a ferocious conclusion and a long development. It does not bore or let the viewer down. On the contrary it makes you open your eyes widely and watch it without blinking. The actress Binnur Kaya who appears as the electrician Celal's wife Sevilay performs wonderful scenes. Also Engin Gunaydin shows us how it is to be a bad person without regretting. A breathtaking black humor. And the family with an absolutely diabolical father, with an angel mother and their teenager son who got stuck in between.

I was one of the best films I've watched in a long time. A story of a family living in a small town struggling against the daily life like in classical melodrama. But this one takes the issue in a satiric way and takes a big step into black humor, even into film noir. While doing it never leaves the control of the movie or lose the center. A movie in harmony with all elements; from plot to actors, from cinematography to directing. It was a very pleasant experience for me, I really enjoyed it. A very satisfying movie coming from contemporary Turkish cinema which needs more films like this. In fact every cinema needs films like this.

Vavien fmovies. I think this movie is the only succesfull dark-comedy of the Turkish cinema.Script is great,actors and actresses performances are great and especially its realistic.

I'm not getting into artsy fartsy cinematic details since sometimes a movie is an entertainment watch. And this one is indeed your money's worth of very entertaining dark comedy from Turkey. It might start a little slow but that is the only criticism here and i only mention it so you know it's going to get better quickly.

All together the subtle humour and the sinister plot are very well balanced. The characters are so delightful in their naivety or down right evilness. It all has the classic elements of a solid dark satire: clean-cut characters, secrets that bite them in the ass and surprising plot twists that make you snicker and chuckle in malicious delight.