100 Numaralı Adam

A poor young man catches the eye of an advertising agency. The agency is sitting on a pile of shoddy, unsellable product and needs a face to move it. With the campaign the young man becomes famous overnight, is declared a folk hero, appears in the papers, and everyone knows him. But the fame is not his; the agency holds it and can take it back whenever it likes. Directed by Osman F. Seden, the film uses the Kemal Sunal mould: guileless, well-meaning, and dropped into a machine larger than himself. Here the machine is advertising and manufactured celebrity. The film coincides with the moment consumer culture became visible in Turkey at the end of the 1970s. Oya Aydoğan and Ali Şen are in the cast. The comedy is direct and verbal, with scenes built on sketch logic. Who it's for: Viewers who like Kemal Sunal comedies, the Yeşilçam style of the 1970s, and satire of advertising. Who it's not for: The production constraints show, with editing and sound carrying the limits of the period. The satire also stays on the surface without going deeper.