Now it's time to rewatch his films and LOVE Metin Erksan again!

Metin Erksan (January 1, 1929 – August 4, 2012), born İsmail Metin Karamanbey, was a Turkish film director and art historian.

Now it's time to rewatch his films and LOVE Metin Erksan again!

Şimdi filmlerini tekrar izleme ve Metin Erksan’ı tekrar SEVME ZAMANI!

SOURCE IN TURKISH Gizem Ertürk – Yeşil Gazete

Sadi Çilingir – Film Critic

Metin Erksan is one of our cinema's most original directors. "Time to Love" alone is enough to count him among the most important directors not only in our country but also in world cinema. A film like "Time to Love" will never be made again, even in world cinema.

 

 Alper Turgut – Film Critic

Metin Erksan is undoubtedly one of the greatest losses of Turkish cinema. If we still can't call it a national cinema, it's because he and other talented, original directors, who were in love with the magic of cinema, have been alienated. Censorship, the failure to establish filmmaking laws, and the negative impacts on the industry forced Metin Erksan out of the director's chair too early. The director of Susuz Yaz, Yılanların Öcü (Revenge of the Snakes), and Kuyu (The Well), retired from filmmaking at his most productive, his masterful age.

 

No, of course not. How could I forget Sevmek Zamanı (Time to Love)? Selvi Boylum (The Girl with the Red Scarf) is a good love story, but Sevmek Zamanı (Time to Love) is the most beautiful and special of our love stories; it's the pinnacle. Akad, Güney, Yılmaz, Kavur, Refiğ, and finally Erksan… All the colors of our cinema's past are fading. Naturally, a new generation emerged, followed by today's directors. In Metin Erksan's absence, the number of genres increased, and productions that surpassed mediocrity were produced, but his absence was always felt. Yesterday, I watched "Time to Love" again, and I fell in love with your painting, not with you, the man said. Yesterday, as more directors fall in love with the seventh art of cinema, not with box office or fame, future filmmakers will understand Metin Erksan better, because he chose the difficult, not the easy, and he chose to make films, not to make them. 

 Yeşim Tabak – Film Critic

More than anything else, the memory of Yeşilçam is romanticized as a kind of "labor." By this, we mean a knack for producing a lot in a short time, for making progress with immediate practical solutions and compromises, simply saying "as much as it is..." Or a Turkish "finishing" approach that doesn't distinguish an artist from a shopkeeper, a worker, or a student of "Hababam Sınıfı." When I think of Metin Erksan's cinema, I'm reminded of concerns and desires rarely seen in this land (and which have drawn criticism due to their very assertiveness): perfectionism, the quest for originality/newness, the courage to surprise people, a celebration of the "surreal" and the poetic, a different kind of labor spent during a long preparatory process based on "thinking" and not limited to action on the set... I'm so glad Erksan existed. His unique place in our cinematic history has always been a source of inspiration and a branch of support for audiences interested in the "avant-garde" (especially those from the generations that followed). While I'm not going to claim he's a feminist, Metin Erksan holds an interesting place in Turkish cinema history for his efforts to understand female characters. In my opinion, his best film is "The Well," which possesses an almost fairytale-like atmosphere with its effortless minimalism. My favorites, with their peculiar "unlikeness," are "Sevmek Zamanı" (Time to Love) and "Kadın Hamlet." 

 Selim Güneş – Director

As a filmmaker, my heart ached for Metin Erksan, the director of films like "Susuz Yaz," "Sevmek Zamanı," "Revenge of the Snakes," and "The Well." I've said this before in an interview: he's the director who has influenced me the most.

I remember an interview where Metin Erksan said that a filmmaker must, above all else, be responsible. This approach is why we recognize him as a master filmmaker.

The three films that have influenced me most are "The Well," "The Well," and "Efesi of Dokuz Dağın." I believe the impact of "Efesi of Dokuz Dağın" has something to do with the era in which I watched the film. I believe Fikret Hakan was the hero of my childhood. Fikret Hakan is the hero of my childhood.

But "The Well" and "The Well" are films that made me say, "I want to make films like this." And the emotions they both evoke are very powerful. For me, cinema, more than anything else, is the "emotion of cinema." The cinematography in both films is also impressive. Especially "The Well"... 

 Hasan Tolga Pulat – Director

I've always loved Turkish films... The phrase, "Whether you turn up your nose at them as much as you like, they're always very precious to me," is "You're as impudent as you are beautiful."

Yeşilçam's melodramatic world, with all its sincerity, naivety, hope, and the sharp distinction between black and white, told me a fairy tale. When I entered film school, I discovered another side of Turkish cinema. In this world, I began to encounter the films of directors like Ömer Lütfi Akad, Atıf Yılmaz, Yılmaz Güney, and Metin Erksan. These directors' cinema was far beyond the fairy tales I'd heard from Turkish cinema until then. Their detached perspectives on their stories, their realistic and harsh styles, their antiheroes, and their unhappy endings gave me a more concrete reflection of life. They began to create a more mature world of ideas in my mind. They lifted me out of the naive world of my childhood and made me aware of the existence of a challenging, uncanny world.

Thanks to these films, I began to grow. As we began to lose these great filmmakers, one by one, we also began to lose a generation. A generation that had managed to impose its visual and auditory worlds on Turkish cinema and its audience without being perceived as out of place. These individuals were not only filmmakers but also philosophers who profoundly understood and eloquently described their society and era. When I heard the news of the death of Metin Erksan, perhaps the last of these philosophers, I was heartbroken to know that this generation, which had contributed so much to the evolution of Turkish cinema, had now passed. I wish he had made more films, that I could have been part of one of those films, and I was saddened by the end of my dreams. I immediately thought of the film "Susuz Yaz" (Susuz Yaz), which I saw as part of the Traveling Film Festival in Izmir. Its profoundly realistic story reveals all the reflexes of society. Witnessing the young Hülya Koçyiğit, in her debut, deliver a realistic performance perhaps never achieved again in her career, experiencing the justified pride of watching Erol Taş in the lead role, and seeing the harsh, manipulative, and ruthless atmosphere of the world convey universal implications through the Anatolian people, made the film an unforgettable one. I remember leaving the festival feeling initially surprised and then thrilled by this film, which differed from most Turkish films I'd seen. The reason why the cold, distant, and at times surreal story in "Time to Love" transformed into a love story that resonated with me as much as any other romantic drama was Metin Erksan's exceptionally successful balance between modern cinematic language and classical cinematic conventions. The fantasy universe and the eerie, unsettling atmosphere of "The Well" were more reminiscent of European films than Turkish ones. Losing this great master, one of the last representatives of a generation that would always preserve its originality by breaking all the molds of Turkish cinema, changing and transforming all the habits of the Turkish audience, will always create a feeling of orphanhood that Turkish cinema will always feel. 

 Nizam Eren – Cinema Projects and Communications Consultant

If you're a kid, you remember the actors of a film you watched and were captivated by, you imitate them, you can't stop thinking about every frame, you hum the music, you rave about it to every kid in the neighborhood. Those films were actually directed by someone, and you realize it when you grow up.

Metin Erksan made the best of these films. He's the director of those films that impressed you as a child. He's the man thousands of graduating film students aspire to be.

We knew him as a man who read extensively, researched extensively, tried the unconventional and the untried, and pioneered many things. We also knew him as "the man who hasn't made films in 30 years."

"Revenge of the Snakes" was caught up in the censorship of the times. "Susuz Yaz" was caught up in the censorship of the times. Everything he did was somehow cut. Let me tell you what: In 1963, Metin Erksan adapted Necati Cumali's novel "DRY SUMMER" for the screen. Despite the censorship board's ban on the film's participation in the festival, it (ILLEGALLY) traveled to Berlin and won the Golden Bear.

(The film, initially allowed to go abroad, requested permission to participate in the festival, but when the board reconvened and banned it on the grounds that it "showed Turkey in a bad light.")

Despite this, the film smuggled into Berlin and, as is well known, won the Golden Bear, the highest award. Upon returning home, the Ministry of Culture threw the team a celebratory cocktail reception, as if they hadn't banned it. Not content with the cocktail reception, they also awarded awards to Erol Taş, Metin Erksan, and Hülya Koçyiğit.

Everyone wondered why he hadn't made films since he was 53. He hadn't made films since he was 53, a full 30 years. That's the kind of man Metin Erksan was. May he shine brightly...

Now it's time to rewatch his films and LOVE Metin Erksan again!

Şimdi filmlerini tekrar izleme ve Metin Erksan’ı tekrar SEVME ZAMANI!